I Turned Off JavaScript for a Week • Hacker News Board

Re: I Turned Off JavaScript for a Week

#31

Post by mixmastamyk » Thu, Nov 19, 2015, 8:54 AM UTC

Majestic121 wrote: post #4

I have been using NoScript (a browser extension to black list all JS by default) for quite a while now, and I don't see myself turning back anytime soon. Everything feels much faster, and sober without Javascript, especially news site (looking at you, lemonde.fr) I still allow some JavaScript sometimes, most of the time to unbreak site, but if you start you using it you will realise that most of the JS running on eac…

News sites are the worst, some of them have twenty! libs and trackers on them.

Re: I Turned Off JavaScript for a Week

#32

Post by HappyTypist » Thu, Nov 19, 2015, 8:54 AM UTC

e2e8 wrote: post #28

pvdebbe wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that simple content such as blogs, news and the equivalent should not be implemented in js-dependent web apps. Web browsers are a platform for sure, but the simple content should stay simple.

It have thought for a while now that the web and correspondingly the browser should be bifurcated into a content platform with no client side code and an application platform without the burden of the older technologies. The browser would provide all the interactivity and logic for the content platform through implementations of standard html tags. For the application platform, the browser could provide a more conven…

Yes, because a blog post should disappear or be unable to be scrolled if my cellular reception drops out for 10 seconds.

Re: I Turned Off JavaScript for a Week

#33

Post by thecatspaw » Thu, Nov 19, 2015, 8:55 AM UTC

z3t4 wrote: post #24

Sadly JavaScript or "the language of the web" is going towards binary rather then openness. The big sites like Google already obfuscate their code so it's hard to see what it does. I learned JavaScript by viewing other peoples source code, witch was as easy as right clicking and selecting view source. Unless we want more people to disable JavaScript, we need to keep it open source and transparent!

Do you run any application which you downloaded from the internet? Database Administration tool, messaging app, or similar? They are mostly written in code you cannot access or view in any way, yet you still trust the publisher.

Re: I Turned Off JavaScript for a Week

#34

Post by jacquesm » Thu, Nov 19, 2015, 8:58 AM UTC

allSunshine wrote: post #27

This is where I draw the line, Hacker News. The end of the road. Do you know how many shitty stink eyes I've gotten from people on this site, just because I've dared to speak out against JavaScript, Cookies and Analytics. But oh! OH! Wired writes a story about it, and suddenly, the clouds open, and the sunshine just pours through. *OF COURSE* an article in *Wired* is gospel! We were *FOOLS* to ever claim otherwise! J…

Nonsense. The fact that HN has people with a lot of different viewpoints is what makes it good. I'm pretty strongly in the 'as little javascript as we can get away with' camp and this wired article contains no news to me but I'm more than happy to see it voted up.

Re: I Turned Off JavaScript for a Week

#35

Post by oneweekwonder » Thu, Nov 19, 2015, 8:58 AM UTC

z3t4 wrote: post #24

Sadly JavaScript or "the language of the web" is going towards binary rather then openness. The big sites like Google already obfuscate their code so it's hard to see what it does. I learned JavaScript by viewing other peoples source code, witch was as easy as right clicking and selecting view source. Unless we want more people to disable JavaScript, we need to keep it open source and transparent!

Yes the Google Closure Compiler[0] obfuscate the code, but it also minifies it and even optimise it.

[0]: https://developers.google.com/closure/compiler/

Re: I Turned Off JavaScript for a Week

#36

Post by rplnt » Thu, Nov 19, 2015, 8:59 AM UTC

thecatspaw wrote: post #33

z3t4 wrote: post #24

Sadly JavaScript or "the language of the web" is going towards binary rather then openness. The big sites like Google already obfuscate their code so it's hard to see what it does. I learned JavaScript by viewing other peoples source code, witch was as easy as right clicking and selecting view source. Unless we want more people to disable JavaScript, we need to keep it open source and transparent!

Do you run any application which you downloaded from the internet? Database Administration tool, messaging app, or similar? They are mostly written in code you cannot access or view in any way, yet you still trust the publisher.

And they are rarely sandboxed (as opposed to javascript in browsers).

Re: I Turned Off JavaScript for a Week

#37

Post by e2e8 » Thu, Nov 19, 2015, 8:59 AM UTC

In addition to disabling js, another thing I do is disable styles. The web is really quite beautiful and often more usable with the default styles.

Re: I Turned Off JavaScript for a Week

#38

Post by catshirt » Thu, Nov 19, 2015, 8:59 AM UTC

z3t4 wrote: post #24

Sadly JavaScript or "the language of the web" is going towards binary rather then openness. The big sites like Google already obfuscate their code so it's hard to see what it does. I learned JavaScript by viewing other peoples source code, witch was as easy as right clicking and selecting view source. Unless we want more people to disable JavaScript, we need to keep it open source and transparent!

you and I learned how to code before the resources were as plentiful as today.

for every obfuscated app there are 200 sites that explain in detail what you want to do. and another 200 open source versions to implement or learn from.

Re: I Turned Off JavaScript for a Week

#39

Post by bshimmin » Thu, Nov 19, 2015, 9:01 AM UTC

Two things that caught my eye in this article were "Many people have turned to ad blockers" and "A small but growing number of people, however, are taking ad-blocking a step further and just disabling JavaScript altogether". For the first quote, I know many people in tech who use ad blockers (but maybe still not a majority?), but I'm pretty sure they aren't all that prevalent outside of it (or why would advertisers bother?). As for the second quote, is this actually true or supported by any real evidence?

Re: I Turned Off JavaScript for a Week

#40

Post by bojo » Thu, Nov 19, 2015, 9:03 AM UTC

z3t4 wrote: post #24

Sadly JavaScript or "the language of the web" is going towards binary rather then openness. The big sites like Google already obfuscate their code so it's hard to see what it does. I learned JavaScript by viewing other peoples source code, witch was as easy as right clicking and selecting view source. Unless we want more people to disable JavaScript, we need to keep it open source and transparent!

While I understand the intent of your post, don't most people minify (obfuscate) their JS code to reduce bandwidth costs (on both ends, user and company)? Even in todays high bandwidth availability age we still use CDNs and the like to reduce such a cost.

That said, it would definitely be nice to see non-minified versions of code we run in our browsers available as open source by the company serving it. It's not like it's a secret, just a pain to actually try to decipher.