Processing XML with Java™: A Guide to SAX, DOM, JDOM, JAXP, and TrAX

The Evolution of DOM

The first version of DOM, sometimes called DOM Level 0, wasn't an official specification but merely the object model that Netscape Navigator 3 and Internet Explorer 3 browsers implemented. (These were actually two different object models only marginally compatible with each other.)

DOM Level 0 applied only to HTML documents and only in the context of JavaScript. Nonetheless, both the usefulness of JavaScript and the growing incompatibility between the two browser object models underscored the need for something more standard. Hence, the W3C launched the W3C DOM Activity and began work on DOM Level 1. DOM1 was an attempt to devise a specification as quickly as possible that would codify existing practice and also achieve some ...