[Javascript] Efficiency of innerHTML over DOM tree manipulation

[javascript at mattbarton.org (Matt Barton)]

tedd wrote:

> Do you have an url to show us?
> 
> That might be quicker for us to see what the problem is.
> 

Unfortunately I don't, because that would be very handy.  It's not 
publically viewable anywhere - it's an intranet application.

I'm pretty certain I know what the problem is - it's generating some 
(deliberately) extremely complicated pages, and a fair amount of page 
generation, after loading the page, in javascript.  I'm after finding 
out the best way to make that as efficient as possible.

Everyone's comments on page redesign are well meaning, but ultimtely not 
  what I'm after - these are by neccessity very large pages.

I've managed any number of speed increases through caching element 
templates and data arrays in a static frame, so some comments that have 
been made are things that I have already done.

Ultimately, without meaning to sound ungrateful, when I asked my 
question, I was specifically not asking "how do I make my page quicker", 
I was asking which of the two methods I proposed was the most efficient.

I guess like others have said, I'm going to have to benchmark it for 
myself to a degree, although I've read what ppk has done, and that is 
very very interesting.

Thanks all.

Matt