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A day without JavaScript

sonniesedge.co.uk

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Re: A day without JavaScript

#301

Post by thinkxl »

joshstrange wrote: post #253
thinkxl wrote: post #148

It's funny how devs feel threatened by a non-JS trend. Even when their favorite frameworks are providing tools to accomplish minimal functionality when JavaScript is off. Server side rendering has been a big priority in React, Vue, Redux, ReactRouter, etc.

I'm not threatened but no-js but I also am not going to maintain 2 code bases or thoroughly complicate things for such a small percentage of people. Yes if you have a news/blog site you should probably support noscript but for web apps I'm sorry, it's just not worth the time and effort.

There are ways where you don't have to maintain 2 code bases. For example with react, when doing SSR, you can import your components from the client and use them in the server, allowing you to keep minimal functionality (links, text, images, etc.) when the JavaScript is off.

There is one function on the server that you need to use to render any component you imported.

Re: A day without JavaScript

#302

Post by andai »

cr0sh wrote: post #214
4c2383f5c88e911 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And most websites that work without JS also work fine without CSS. Almost like a pattern that can be found in properly built websites.

You know - at one time we built plenty of websites - and in some cases applications - using little to no javascript (either it didn't exist, or it was only used for very minimal things) or any CSS (it didn't exist). So what could we do today? That is - if we purposefully limited ourselves to just basic HTML, and server-side processing, without any (or minimal) CSS or javascript, and only using the (expanded) tag and…

What kind of things are you imagining people would get done with such a limitation?

Recently I was using an expensive mobile connection and I discovered w3m, a text based browser (runs in the terminal). I was amazed at how much faster everything worked.

Most of the sites were still perfectly usable (w3m has pretty good HTML rendering) but some were very difficult to navigate.

My point is, without JS and CSS, the web is just... text.

And when you browse with w3m you realize, that actually the web has always been text. It can be quite refreshing to get all the decorative crap out of the way.

--

edit: I now see you didn't say to remove JS, but to challenge yourself to see how much you can make in a tiny amount of JS. Such competitions exist!

web pages https://a-k-apart.com/

java games http://www.java4k.com/

Re: A day without JavaScript

#303

Post by andrewfong »

brut wrote: post #283
andrewfong wrote: post #265

Are there any JS frameworks that make it easy to build SPAs that degrade gracefully when JS isn't available? I know there's a lot of work done on making server-side rendering work with React / Vue / whatever, but I'm wondering if there's a framework available that asks for some tradeoffs in how your SPA is structured in order to maximize the amount of functionality available when scripting is off (similar to how Redu…

I don't have a specific answer to your question. What I think would be much more sensible is to design your website without JS, and then sprinkle it here and there. Ex: Make a request to an API upon page load. Populate tables or whatever you want. Then if JS is enabled, load a script that makes AJAX calls to the API to update the data every x seconds. That way your site gets "enhanced" by JS and is completely usable…

Yes, the issue is then that you have to write two pieces of DOM rendering code (some view code in erb/jinja/whatever to populate a template on the server, and a piece of JS to update the table afterwards).

And if you want to allow JS-enabled browsers to transition between views (and different data subscriptions) without having to reload the entire page, then you'll have to write two pieces of routing code (one route in Rails/Django/whatever and another in JS).

And if you want to allow JS-enabled browsers to post form data back to your server and make minor changes to the page (e.g. edit one field in a table) without reloading the entire DOM, then you'll have to write two different routes on your server -- one that processes the form data and returns the HTML for a newly rendered page, and one that processes the same form data and returns only what's changed.

You could, of course, use server-side-rendering JS to DRY things up for issue one. I'm more curious if anything reduces the boilerplate for issues two and three.

Re: A day without JavaScript

#304

Post by andrewfong »

jkeat wrote: post #286
andrewfong wrote: post #265

Are there any JS frameworks that make it easy to build SPAs that degrade gracefully when JS isn't available? I know there's a lot of work done on making server-side rendering work with React / Vue / whatever, but I'm wondering if there's a framework available that asks for some tradeoffs in how your SPA is structured in order to maximize the amount of functionality available when scripting is off (similar to how Redu…

On the topic of server-side rendering, Ember's Fastboot is worth checking out. https://ember-fastboot.com/

Fastboot (and SSR in general) is nice, but this only ensures that no JS is required for the initial page load. For a true no-JS experience, you'd also need to handle (among other things) posting data back to the server without JS.

Re: A day without JavaScript

#305

Post by [deleted] »

Touche wrote: post #290
ZeroClickOk wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully agree. Do you stop to think flash/action script was "obsolete" because all this? and now we have the exact same problems...

flash was obsoleted because 1) iphone didn't support it, 2) iphone didn't support it, 3) iphone didn't support it, and 4) JS replaced the non-DRM use cases (and now even replaced that).

[deleted]

Re: A day without JavaScript

#306

Post by 801699 »

Touche wrote: post #289
mnm1 wrote: post #242

This is everyday for me. Just whitelist the few sites that actually need it and most of the rest are fine. This should be the default. What do I care if some images don't load or CSS is slightly off? The main content is there. For sites that won't do anything without JS, I can consider whether I want to use them or not. Mostly not. Fuck other people running code unnecessarily, without my permission, on my computer. E…

> Fuck other people running code unnecessarily, without my permission, on my computer. You gave them permission. Actually, you asked them to do it when you sent that GET request to their servers that returned a bunch of HTML that included script tags.

Is this really how developers think?

And what if the user does not download the .js file?

And what if the user downloads the .js file but does not run it in an interpreter?

What if the browser authors refuse to process what is enclosed in script tags and to run Javascript?

Maybe they believe it consumes too much memory.

Based on your comment (trolling?), I think maybe Javascript is not the problem. It is developers with thinking such as yours.

If we put inline js or links to .js files in files requested via HTTP, then we cannot claim that users "chose" or gave "permission" to fetch these .js files or to run them. As another commenter stated, those requests were not initiated by the user, but by the browser.

The selection of browsers is small, and made smaller by web developers who promote use of certain browsers i.e., big fat intepreters that will run their needless Javascript. (The keyword is "needless". Almost always users can get the data they seek without running Javascript.)

These "favored" browsers present a massive memory hog and attack surface compared to the minimal tcp client required to retrieve text via HTTP.

Re: A day without JavaScript

#307

Post by Anthony-G »

edent wrote: post #81
russdpale wrote: post #6

I generally agree with what he is saying, but the web has moved beyond the point where its reasonable to expect websites to have JS fallbacks. It is just too prominent now a days. I've always been a JS hater, though I have to code it frequently.. However, with that said I find the arguments against the language becoming more and more obsolete as the years go on.

> I generally agree with what he is saying "I’m a 30-something woman living in Berlin, Germany (the famous one, with the wall and stuff)." https://sonniesedge.co.uk/about/

The page is also titled About Her (link text is the same).

Re: A day without JavaScript

#308

Post by feedjoelpie »

jaclaz wrote: post #152
feedjoelpie wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though I am a frequent advocate of leaning on more old school techniques for building web apps (even with new school tools), I vehemently disagree that this is a generally worthy cause. A small list of (I think non-controversial) things: 1. You browse without JS. You're a power user. You already know why the page doesn't work. A courtesy message would be nice, I guess, but it seems fairly pointless. 2. Should my…

>1. You browse without JS. You're a power user. You already know why the page doesn't work. A courtesy message would be nice, I guess, but it seems fairly pointless. Well, the point is that a lot of people post their site on HN as "Show HN", and the "intended audience" is then (or should be) "power users", which should also mean that "power users" (few as they might be) are potentially interested to your site, but yo…

This is only a valid analogy if in our real world I could make a tuxedo appear on my body with no more effort than snapping my fingers. (Which would be awesome.)

Re: A day without JavaScript

#309

Post by 801699 »

Touche wrote: post #300
bphogan wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. They gave permission for the initial GET request for the HTML. The rest of the requests were inserted into the document by the programmer and executed by the browser. The browser assumed those links should be fetched automatically and executed. :)

The rest of the requests were triggered by the browser, not the programmer, because they were part of the initial HTML and the browser follows the HTML spec. The person complaining about it and is technical and knows this, they were under no misconception that they were viewing a document format that doesn't include code execution. Of which I'm having trouble of even thinking of an example, because even Word document…

Trivial to strip HTML tags and produce useful text.

Send all the extraneous garbage you want to the user. She can remove it and keep only what she wants. Meanwhile from the user's perspective you are wasting bandwidth. Who is paying for that bandwidth?

Re: A day without JavaScript

#310

Post by TheCoelacanth »

jaclaz wrote: post #152
feedjoelpie wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though I am a frequent advocate of leaning on more old school techniques for building web apps (even with new school tools), I vehemently disagree that this is a generally worthy cause. A small list of (I think non-controversial) things: 1. You browse without JS. You're a power user. You already know why the page doesn't work. A courtesy message would be nice, I guess, but it seems fairly pointless. 2. Should my…

>1. You browse without JS. You're a power user. You already know why the page doesn't work. A courtesy message would be nice, I guess, but it seems fairly pointless. Well, the point is that a lot of people post their site on HN as "Show HN", and the "intended audience" is then (or should be) "power users", which should also mean that "power users" (few as they might be) are potentially interested to your site, but yo…

I would see it as more equivalent to a "No shirt. No shoes. No service." sign. The vast majority of people will already meet the criteria, and those that don't are already well aware that they are likely to run into problems.
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