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One of the comments is that it is not programming related.

Possible answers to the question in question might be code snippets or links to a specific implementation i.e. IE and that wouldn't be off topic would it?

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The OP's snide comment to Oded certainly doesn't help his case. –  jadarnel27 Jan 31 '12 at 23:49
@jadarnel27 True, and I like Oded's response. –  Matthew Jan 31 '12 at 23:52
Matthew the question is now closed. Good job! –  Yannis Jan 31 '12 at 23:56
"i.e. IE" - just rolls off your tongue... –  Lix Jan 31 '12 at 23:56
Just doing my duty. –  Matthew Jan 31 '12 at 23:57
Deletion is next. –  Rosinante Feb 1 '12 at 0:10
@Lix I am trying to be more meta. Am I doing it right? –  Matthew Feb 1 '12 at 0:13
There's no such thing as doing it right on meta. –  BoltClock's a Unicorn Feb 1 '12 at 3:36
"How does a browser render a page using the DOM model constructed from html?" Well, the key to parsing HTML and getting it ready for display is understanding regex. Once you've mastered that, you'll be halfway there, and it'll become quite obvious how to manage the rest. –  Adam Davis Feb 1 '12 at 5:15
To add to @AdamDavis comment, the rest is jQuery. –  Time Traveling Bobby Feb 1 '12 at 9:19
... I thought that was how you summon Zalgo –  Matthew Feb 1 '12 at 11:51
@Matthew: Exactly. –  BoltClock's a Unicorn Feb 1 '12 at 20:18
H̡̫̤̤̣͉̤ͭ̓̓̇͗̎̀e ͎͉͖̌ͯͅͅc̸̤͓̞̱̫ͩͩ͑̋̀ͮͥͦ̊omes ̮̗̩̳̾ –  Matthew Feb 1 '12 at 20:20

2 Answers 2

up vote 16 down vote accepted

Hmm. No, I agree with the off-topic voters. This kind of behaviour is how a piece of software works in the general sense, which is more like HowStuffWorks (i.e. probably a question for Super User). If you were asking how a specific part of the code within a browser works, then that sounds like a Stack Overflow question, because someone is running through code and explaining that, but top-level functionality is more of a power user question than a software developer's question.

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Actually, the question title looks specific and on topic enough to me. It's just too bad the question itself sucks and that the OP couldn't care less. I am almost tempted to reask it without giving him any sort of credit. –  BoltClock's a Unicorn Feb 1 '12 at 3:40
About the only on-topic bit I could see was the mention of a DOM. Asking "how does a web browser work" is way too broad a question for SO, imo. A question which is probably askable on Programmers is "what software design patterns does (FF/Chrome) make use of?". At least then you have a ballpark discussion about the way to architect that kind of a system. But I don't think SO is generally suited to "how does program work?" questions. –  darvids0n Feb 1 '12 at 3:41
True — I'm more concerned with the broadness of scope of the question myself. If I could dumb it down to something reasonably-scoped yet keep it interesting enough for web developers... –  BoltClock's a Unicorn Feb 1 '12 at 3:56
The question is gone now but it was very broad and kind of vague like 'how do most browsers render HTML...' –  Matthew Feb 1 '12 at 11:45

This question falls foul of this paragraph of What kind of questions should I not ask here?:


Given that there exist both the Dragon book ('create your own compiler from scratch') and WebKit for Dummies, it's surely possible to imagine a 'create your own browser from scratch' book.

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