[PATCH] Optimized DOM navigation methods

Thanks a lot! This seems really smart, and it isn't big at all

+1 -- needs a bit of cleanup for down before adding it in, though

I've refactored #immediateDescendants and #down to use a #findChildNodes method that will be used by both methods. Not sure if the name (findChildNodes) is the best so let me know if you have any comments.

Seems nice. The only problem remains "descendants" vs. "findChildNodes" from the user perspective. The latter obviously being an internal method, it could possibly be made private?

Yes i was thinking on that as well. What about something like this

Element.addMethods((function() {
  function findChildNodes(element, single) {
    //...
  }
  return {
    down: function(element) {
      return findChildNodes(element, true);
    },
    
    immediateDescendants: function(element) {
      return findChildNodes(element, false);
    }
  };
})());

or did you have another solution in mind?

Well, yeah. Unfortunately we don't yet practice this in the framework, but you're welcome to resubmit the patch with this kind of true privacy so we can compare the two and decide.

Patch with anonymous findChildNodes instead

I meant "private" not anonymous..

Fixed in [6562]