Why is document.all falsy?

Question

document.all is a non-primitive object in the DOM that is falsy.

For example, this code doesn\'t do anything:

if (document.all) {
    al         


        

Answer 1

In short, it's to make BOTH of these code samples work. Browsers have to do this so that old web pages will continue to work.

Sample 1

// Internet Explorer
if (document.all) {
    useActiveX()
}
// Netscape Navigator
else {
    useOldButStillWorkingCode()
}

Sample 2

document.all.output.innerHTML = 'Hello, world!'