Xah Lee, 2005-05, …, 2010-03, 2011-04-28
There is no one single practical reference for Javascript/DOM. Javascript, CSS, DOM are developed out of competing browser implementations in late 1990s. Later a standard body arose and tried to standadardize these techs. However, the references and documentations from standard bodies, such as W3C, have little relevance for practical js coding. (They are useful only if you are implementing the browser or the js language.) If your code is complex, testing with different browsers is necessary.
W3C Markup Validation Service.
In some technical context, the word JavaScript refers to the language created by Netscape (now Mozilla), such as used in Firefox browser. Microsoft's version in its Internet Explorer browser is called JScript. The language is also adopted by Adobe in its Adobe Flash product, called ActionScript.
The standardized version is called ECMAScript. JavaScript, JScript, ActionScript, are all just implementations of ECMAScript.
DOM is supposed to be a abstract document model. However, in practice, for web scripting, it is really just part of the language of javascript. Most coding of js is about understanding DOM.
As of today (2010), for practical purposes, some 98% of DOM Level 2 is implemented across browsers.