I was wondering if people had any views as to what the advantage of using the DOM objects, ie getElementById, createElement, createTextNode etc were over just using document.write('tag') DHTML commands are.

Simplisitcally I would think that the use of the DOM mechanism will abstract authors from change in syntax of the HTML/DHTML/XHTML tags - because they would invoke the same methods irrespective of the underlying page technology?

Is this a true assumption?

Are there any others?

I guess the downside of DOM at the moment may be perceived to be cross browser adoption/implementation?

Thoughts?

uhm... well DHTML as it is, Dynamic HTML, is best done by manipulating the Document Object Model. Using document.write and innerHTML are more quick fix / hacks that are unefficient in comparisson. So.. I would not put a separation between DHTML and DOM. And as for cross-browser adoptions / implementation, you would be surprised how much alike FF and IE are for manipulation. Sure, IE has spent years developing its client-side scripting technology, before standards became ... a standard .. so they are surely going to support other things which they have worked so hard at providing for their developers; but as a standard is in place, cross-browser manipulation of the DOM has become MUCH more tollerable.

http://www.w3.org/DOM/