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Your website should work without JavaScript (2021)

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Re: Your website should work without JavaScript (2021)

#121

Post by bearmode »

capitainenemo wrote: post #101
cercatrova wrote: post #84

I used to think this. I even used uMatrix (RIP) to disable all JS. After a while though, it simply wasn't worth it. You'll have a vocal minority on HN of JS disablers, but the truth is most people don't know or care about JavaScript, much less want to disable it. So, it's really not worth catering to this 0.2% or even 1% of people as the article cites. There are just too many interesting things JS can do. I've been p…

I don't know much about your particular use case, but in my experience implementing an animation in CSS results in a smoother animation with better GL acceleration in the browser resulting in a lot less CPU/battery consumption. So. There's that. But otherwise I'm broadly in agreement. If you're making an online application, it pretty much requires JS. Not so much for CRUD db form apps/forums/blogs/wikis etc.

>Not so much for CRUD db form apps/forums/blogs/wikis etc.

If you want decent/custom FE validation you do still need it

Re: Your website should work without JavaScript (2021)

#122

Post by bearmode »

robalni wrote: post #107
cercatrova wrote: post #84

I used to think this. I even used uMatrix (RIP) to disable all JS. After a while though, it simply wasn't worth it. You'll have a vocal minority on HN of JS disablers, but the truth is most people don't know or care about JavaScript, much less want to disable it. So, it's really not worth catering to this 0.2% or even 1% of people as the article cites. There are just too many interesting things JS can do. I've been p…

I don't care how many people there are that care about whether they are running javascript. The problem persists even if 0 people care about it. The problem is that people are getting abused, even if they don't care about it. They are unknowingly lending their computers to unknown people who use them as their tools by running code on them. My computer is my tool and nobody else's. If website owners think it's totally…

Lmao are you serious? You're specifically visiting their website. You are explicitly requesting whatever they're serving up. It's akin to complaining that a program you downloaded is gasp executing code on YOUR computer!

Re: Your website should work without JavaScript (2021)

#123

Post by krapp »

robalni wrote: post #120
krapp wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do have the right to run arbitrary script code on people's computers. That's been a fundamental part of what the web is and what it is capable of for over 20 years. You, as a web developer, publisher, what have you, have the right to write whatever code you want, even to render text, just as you have the right to design your own page layout, choose your own fonts and colors. It's up to the user agent to decide wh…

Something is not right just because it has been happening for a long time. > It's up to the user agent to decide whether or not to run the code. Yes, it should be. The problem is that things are constructed so that that solution doesn't work because most people don't know how to do it and if you do it a lot of things break. That forces people to let others take control over their computers when they may not actually…

>That forces people to let others take control over their computers when they may not actually want to do that.

This is unnecessarily fear-laden hyperbole. Javascript doesn't force you to let others take control over your computer. And even if it did, for the sake of argument, then literally all code you run does the same, and likely takes far greater control than javascript is capable of.

Re: Your website should work without JavaScript (2021)

#124

Post by deergomoo »

recursivedoubts wrote: post #23

I would very much like for HTML to incorporate concepts from htmx (particularly more flexible transclusion) so that more dynamic websites and applications can be built entirely in HTML. JavaScript became popular because HTML stopped moving forward as a hypermedia, focusing instead on client-side features that, while certainly nice, didn't increase the expressive power of the format in terms of hypermedia.

I feel this way too. JavaScript is overused in part because HTML is very much lacking for the types of websites people expect and want to build today.

By sticking to a rather small selection of semantic and layout primitives with some form fields sprinkled on top, we’re forcing all the responsibility onto the individual developer. Which leads to poor performance, poor accessibility, incalculable man-hours wasted building the same things over and over.

Why isn’t there a element that I can slot child items into and style with CSS? Or a element to view those items in a larger size? Or tabbed control groups? These things have existed since long before people could build rich apps on the web, and having them built into the user agent would give so much power back to the user in terms of customisation and accessibility.

It’s like HTML still lives in a world where the web is solely for documents.

Re: Your website should work without JavaScript (2021)

#125

Post by ghoward »

ravenstine wrote: post #40

I don't care so much when a site with lots of interactivity requires JavaScript, but holy heck, do few things piss me off more than a blog site with articles that require JavaScript just to read text! Whomever writes web software to do that should be ashamed of themselves. If it's really that hard for you to prerender a page on the server, then just send the text by itself. Can you do that? I don't need you to preren…

I agree with you.

I block JavaScript on my own site just to make sure.

Re: Your website should work without JavaScript (2021)

#126

Post by graftak »

onion2k wrote: post #97
cercatrova wrote: post #84

I used to think this. I even used uMatrix (RIP) to disable all JS. After a while though, it simply wasn't worth it. You'll have a vocal minority on HN of JS disablers, but the truth is most people don't know or care about JavaScript, much less want to disable it. So, it's really not worth catering to this 0.2% or even 1% of people as the article cites. There are just too many interesting things JS can do. I've been p…

I'm not going to do that because it's effectively double the work for 1% of the users. This implies that if you only did the CSS version you'd do the same amount of work as the JS version but it would work for everyone. Why wouldn't you do that? Doing only the JS version means you spend the same engineering effort but it doesn't work for as many people. Choosing to do that when you have a choice makes absolutely no s…

The usual suspect for js style manipulation are animations, and because css animations have all sorts of limitations where you will likely run into so it's more convenient to use the same js tooling for animations almost everywhere.

Re: Your website should work without JavaScript (2021)

#127

Post by whakim »

robalni wrote: post #114
whakim wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not really sure I get the point. Simply opening a browser means you're allowing the browser developer to run code on your computer, and you're giving them permission to do so by downloading, installing and using their software.

The differences between the browser I'm currently using and a random website with javascript on the web are: - The browser's source code is available so I can see what it does. - The browser is distributed by Debian who also distribute most other software I use so there is 1 organization to trust instead of 1000. - The browser is not downloaded and executed and upgraded automatically, so it's possible for me to know…

I guess I understand (and respect) the argument that you only want to run code that you can vet and easily modify. But I don't think most people feel that way - I think most people expect that they're getting some service (like a browser) by allowing developers to execute arbitrary code they've built on their device. I therefore don't think javascript is abusive in the way you describe it, because it follows the paradigm people expect and want out of their software.

Re: Your website should work without JavaScript (2021)

#128

Post by cercatrova »

onion2k wrote: post #97
cercatrova wrote: post #84

I used to think this. I even used uMatrix (RIP) to disable all JS. After a while though, it simply wasn't worth it. You'll have a vocal minority on HN of JS disablers, but the truth is most people don't know or care about JavaScript, much less want to disable it. So, it's really not worth catering to this 0.2% or even 1% of people as the article cites. There are just too many interesting things JS can do. I've been p…

I'm not going to do that because it's effectively double the work for 1% of the users. This implies that if you only did the CSS version you'd do the same amount of work as the JS version but it would work for everyone. Why wouldn't you do that? Doing only the JS version means you spend the same engineering effort but it doesn't work for as many people. Choosing to do that when you have a choice makes absolutely no s…

> A particular example is using an animation library like Framer Motion that works with JS. It is somewhat possible to achieve similar effects in CSS, creating your own spring function in SCSS for example, to interpolate between values, but I'm not going to do that because it's effectively double the work for 1% of the users.

> > Doing only the JS version means you spend the same engineering effort but it doesn't work for as many people

Where did I say it would be the same engineering effort? I explicitly said it's more for the CSS version. In my example, the CSS version is inferior to what the JS library can already do. Creating a spring animation is only one of the things that Framer Motion can do in JS built in. If I did everything in (S)CSS I would basically be re-implementing Framer Motion, which, as I stated, is double the work for <1% of users. Why would I want to re-implement a package when it's already there for me to use? So yes, it "absolutely makes sense" to do everything in JS only.

Re: Your website should work without JavaScript (2021)

#129

Post by cercatrova »

robalni wrote: post #107
cercatrova wrote: post #84

I used to think this. I even used uMatrix (RIP) to disable all JS. After a while though, it simply wasn't worth it. You'll have a vocal minority on HN of JS disablers, but the truth is most people don't know or care about JavaScript, much less want to disable it. So, it's really not worth catering to this 0.2% or even 1% of people as the article cites. There are just too many interesting things JS can do. I've been p…

I don't care how many people there are that care about whether they are running javascript. The problem persists even if 0 people care about it. The problem is that people are getting abused, even if they don't care about it. They are unknowingly lending their computers to unknown people who use them as their tools by running code on them. My computer is my tool and nobody else's. If website owners think it's totally…

Then, don't visit their websites? If you want to run only things you trust, then do so. Others (both users and website creators) are free to make their own decisions.

Re: Your website should work without JavaScript (2021)

#130

Post by capitainenemo »

bearmode wrote: post #121
capitainenemo wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know much about your particular use case, but in my experience implementing an animation in CSS results in a smoother animation with better GL acceleration in the browser resulting in a lot less CPU/battery consumption. So. There's that. But otherwise I'm broadly in agreement. If you're making an online application, it pretty much requires JS. Not so much for CRUD db form apps/forums/blogs/wikis etc.

>Not so much for CRUD db form apps/forums/blogs/wikis etc. If you want decent/custom FE validation you do still need it

I assume "FE" means "form error" - personally I agree with you, but you can still make it work without it.. "progressive enhancement" where validation is still done serverside which is an absolute must even if you do use JS for that.

Also, HTML5 validation is pretty darn powerful these days. Check it out if you haven't already.

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