How is append different from appendChild in JavaScript

Before diving into append() and appendChild(), it's important to first understand Nodes and Elements in JavaScript.

🔍 What Are Nodes and Elements?
The HTML Parser is a program that processes HTML and converts it into the DOM (Document Object Model), essentially creating a structured set of nested objects within the document object.

Every HTML tag is considered an Element, but it also falls under the broader category of Nodes. However, the browser doesn't just parse elements—it also considers text inside elements, blank spaces, and even line breaks as Nodes.

📌 In simple terms:
Elements are strictly HTML tags.
Nodes can be elements, text, whitespace, or even comments.
Every Element is a Node, but not every Node is an Element.

📌 How Is This Related to append() and appendChild()?
Now that we understand Nodes, the difference between append() and appendChild() becomes clearer:

✅ append() can insert any type of Node (elements, text, whitespace, etc.) and multiple Nodes at a time.
✅ appendChild() is specifically designed to insert only one Node at a time.

Additionally,
append() returns undefined after execution.
appendChild() returns the appended element itself.

💡 Do you have any thoughts or questions? Let’s discuss in the comments!