As someone who learnt to program in the mid seventies I was always taught that there are no good or bad solutions, only better solutions.

So my attention was drawn to two bookmarklets on this site that achieve the same objective, namely to emulate McAfee's Site Advisor.

I've used MSA on IE so am aware of what it is supposed to do.

As the code for the two solutions is considerably different, but achieves the same results (to me anyway), my question (to you experts out there) is which of the coding is the better and why.

I in no way want this to be a criticism of the two authors or their respective solutions (we all have our own signature when it comes to programming), it's simply an honest attempt at understanding a little bit about Javascript.

The two solutions are:

javascript:void(window.open('http://siteadvisor.com/sites/'+document.location.href.substring(7)));

javascript: var url=document.location.toString(); var withouthttp=url.substring(7); var subpages=withouthttp.indexOf("/"); var cleanurl=withouthttp.substring(0, subpages); window.open("http://siteadvisor.com/sites/" + cleanurl); document.location=url;

Look forward to your responses :-D

Well the second could go without all the variable declarations, and the unnecessary document.location=url; at the end. However there is a difference between the two in that the first sends the site with all the directories and the filename to the site advisor, where the second chops it all off and sends the base url.
I don't know how site advisor works, maybe it chops all the excess off and checks the main site in it's database, or maybe it checks both.
They both seem to load just as fast.

The only suggestion I'd have for the second would be to do something more like:
javascript:var url=document.location.toString().substring(7); window.open("http://siteadvisor.com/sites/"+url.substr(0,url.indexOf("/")));

EDIT: Though personally I would've just done it:
javascript:window.open("http://siteadvisor.com/sites/"+location.host);

I personally like brief bookmarklets. I'd much rather use the first one, not only because it's short and simple, but also because if feels more consuming a web service that way.

Thanks for the input Guys, thought the first one would be the preferred solution ...

Based on my own programming experiences it looked more efficient ...

BTW Waha ...

Just for fun tried your edited version, it didn't work ...

Sorry about that Steve, I misspelled "javascript" I edited my post and it does indeed work now. :P
EDIT: Oh you meant the first one I posted..forgot a ). lol Didn't really care to test them cause it was just for discussion. ^^;

That's me for you, never take anything for granted :-D