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I feel like JS is an expected part of the web just like HTML and CSS. How can you build engaging web applications if you are not even allowed to rely on standar

by supster 10y ago

I feel like JS is an expected part of the web just like HTML and CSS. How can you build engaging web applications if you are not even allowed to rely on standards like JS (e.g. if the user turns off JS)?

krapp 10y ago
>How can you build engaging web applications if you are not even allowed to rely on standards like JS (e.g. if the user turns off JS)? You can, but you an't force the user to interact with your 'web application' in the way you prefer. But you could never rely on the user's browser settings being optimal for the experience you wanted to provide anyway. If you want absolute control over what the user sees and doesn't see, then build a native app. The price you pay for the ubiquity and convenience of web applications is putting control over the interface in the hands of browser vendors and end users.
zeveb 10y ago
> I feel like JS is an expected part of the web just like HTML and CSS. How can you build engaging web applications if you are not even allowed to rely on standards like JS (e.g. if the user turns off JS)? The web is not about 'engaging web applications'; the web is about webs of interlinked documents. Every time you require JavaScript to display a simple document; every time you load images with JavaScript instead of <img>; every time you replace an <a href=> link with a JavaScript event handler; every time you fail to even link to a page; every time you use JavaScript-loaded fonts to display symbols: you break the web. 'Web application' is a misnomer: it should be 'browser application.' Despite my loathing for documents (e.g. blogs, articles &c.) which require code execution in order to be read, I don't mind browser apps where they make sense. Google Maps makes sense: it doesn't bother me that it doesn't work in eww, or links, or with NoScript. Blogger doesn't make sense: there's absolutely no legitimate reason for it to show an empty page with JavaScript turned off: Blogger is breaking the web. imgurl's failure to show all images, and Cracked's failure to show any images, without JavaScript makes no sense: they are breaking the web. People who break the web should be deeply ashamed.
- agmcleod 10y ago
  I agree you're getting the most accessibility by making a blog that renders on the server. But rendering front ends with javascript shouldn't be considered breaking the web. It's a tool that's available in the browser, and many use it to try and make a better experience for their overall users. I think it's a shame we have the "first load no content" problem, but developers are doing this with good intentions. Making UIs respond faster, reducing back & forth network requests, and trying to make more interactive content on the web. There are some warts we need to sort out and get better at, but I still see it as progress.
  - zeveb 10y ago
    > But rendering front ends with javascript shouldn't be considered breaking the web. If it doesn't work without JavaScript, it's breaking the web. I have absolutely no problem with progressive enhancement. I have absolutely no problem with choosing to enable JavaScript when it makes sense. I have a problem with requiring a privacy-destroying technology in order to consume content.
  - pdkl95 10y ago
    > rendering front ends with javascript shouldn't be considered breaking the web. If you want to serve an empty, broken page as a first impression, you can. I strongly recommend against it because it makes your site look half-finished, poorly designed, and generally unprofessional. > available in the browser That isn't always true. You don't know anything about the browser a priori. > make a better experience Of course. Javascript can add nice features, which is why you progressively enhance the page to add features when the underlying requirements are available. Do you skip the check for NULL when calling fopen(1)? Checking for errors is always important. On the web, this means you should gracefully handle problems like missing javascript (intentionally or otherwise) or other resources. > Making UIs respond faster Requiring two additional HTTP requests (one to load javascript, and another to load the actual page content) isn't making the page faster. After the first request your javascript will be available most of the time for partial loads in any case. > interactive content That is rarely a good idea, but it's your page so do what you want. Progressive enhancement doesn't affect this at all.
frontendthing 10y ago
your feelings are not of interest here. If you want to create web apps on a professional level, you have to provide no-js fallback that works everywhere, that is the technical standard. Nobody is interested in how many hours you spend weekly to grow your beard.
dave2000 10y ago
> I feel like JS is an expected part of the web You feel wrong. I enable it when I have to, only. > How can you build engaging web applications Not my problem. I want quick loading sites with as few malware vectors as possible. You should be building web applications which facilitate the transfer of information. You don't need javascript and all the other crap people are using these days for that. I mean, if you're all about pure eye candy and doing..I dunno, mandelbrots or something in the browser, then yeah, you're going to need javascript. But it's not going to work on mobile. Hardly anything like that works on mobile, which is fine by me; I do most of my browsing there. To be honest, I think there's a market for a firefox addon which removes links to sites which don't work on mobile/require you to have javascript enabled to save me the effort of clicking back when i arrive at am empty page or when the screen is dimmed and all I can see is the corner of some dialog I have no interest in zooming out to look at.
- Klathmon 10y ago
  A few months ago I wrote a web-app that lets you pick an image off your computer, and convert it to a cross-stitch pattern. I did it using javascript entirely client side, so it works offline, it's secure (as it doesn't send the images anywhere), and it is fast to load (letting you change settings and get the new cross-stitch in the blink of an eye). With your idea of doing things, i would need to pay for a server (and would probably need to then charge my users who wouldn't pay, so it's now DOA), it would be significantly slower, it would be less secure/private, and wouldn't be able to do things like auto-change the size of the resulting image depending on the screen size of the browser (important for mobile! don't want to overload the browser with massive images). That needs javascript, and for you and others to keep acting like anything that uses javascript is a toy that shouldn't exist is arrogant and wrong.
  - mixedCase 10y ago
    You should be shipping that as a browser extension. As it stands it's not good as a website, but it meets every criteria for a good extension. It's even the kind of thing that passes for a native application in Chrome OS.
Twirrim 10y ago
> How can you build engaging web applications if you are not even allowed to rely on standards like JS (e.g. if the user turns off JS)? What do you do for accessibility? Screen readers etc?
chriswarbo 10y ago
> How can you build engaging web applications if you are not even allowed to rely on standards like JS (e.g. if the user turns off JS)? I think it skews the conversation to talk about JS being "turned off", rather than unavailable, as it assumes that every user agent (browsers, screen readers, crawlers, CLI commands, etc.), even those cobbled together 5 minutes ago to do one quick job, is capable of running JS, has a DOM, is up to date, implements various APIs, that those APIs even make sense (what's the screen resolution of wget running in an SSH session?); and that the user has manually told it not to.

by supster 10y ago

krapp 10y ago

>How can you build engaging web applications if you are not even allowed to rely on standards like JS (e.g. if the user turns off JS)? You can, but you an't force the user to interact with your 'web application' in the way you prefer. But you could never rely on the user's browser settings being optimal for the experience you wanted to provide anyway. If you want absolute control over what the user sees and doesn't see, then build a native app. The price you pay for the ubiquity and convenience of web applications is putting control over the interface in the hands of browser vendors and end users.

zeveb 10y ago

> I feel like JS is an expected part of the web just like HTML and CSS. How can you build engaging web applications if you are not even allowed to rely on standards like JS (e.g. if the user turns off JS)? The web is not about 'engaging web applications'; the web is about webs of interlinked documents. Every time you require JavaScript to display a simple document; every time you load images with JavaScript instead of <img>; every time you replace an <a href=> link with a JavaScript event handler; every time you fail to even link to a page; every time you use JavaScript-loaded fonts to display symbols: you break the web. 'Web application' is a misnomer: it should be 'browser application.' Despite my loathing for documents (e.g. blogs, articles &c.) which require code execution in order to be read, I don't mind browser apps where they make sense. Google Maps makes sense: it doesn't bother me that it doesn't work in eww, or links, or with NoScript. Blogger doesn't make sense: there's absolutely no legitimate reason for it to show an empty page with JavaScript turned off: Blogger is breaking the web. imgurl's failure to show all images, and Cracked's failure to show any images, without JavaScript makes no sense: they are breaking the web. People who break the web should be deeply ashamed.

agmcleod 10y ago
I agree you're getting the most accessibility by making a blog that renders on the server. But rendering front ends with javascript shouldn't be considered breaking the web. It's a tool that's available in the browser, and many use it to try and make a better experience for their overall users. I think it's a shame we have the "first load no content" problem, but developers are doing this with good intentions. Making UIs respond faster, reducing back & forth network requests, and trying to make more interactive content on the web. There are some warts we need to sort out and get better at, but I still see it as progress.
- zeveb 10y ago
  > But rendering front ends with javascript shouldn't be considered breaking the web. If it doesn't work without JavaScript, it's breaking the web. I have absolutely no problem with progressive enhancement. I have absolutely no problem with choosing to enable JavaScript when it makes sense. I have a problem with requiring a privacy-destroying technology in order to consume content.
- pdkl95 10y ago
  > rendering front ends with javascript shouldn't be considered breaking the web. If you want to serve an empty, broken page as a first impression, you can. I strongly recommend against it because it makes your site look half-finished, poorly designed, and generally unprofessional. > available in the browser That isn't always true. You don't know anything about the browser a priori. > make a better experience Of course. Javascript can add nice features, which is why you progressively enhance the page to add features when the underlying requirements are available. Do you skip the check for NULL when calling fopen(1)? Checking for errors is always important. On the web, this means you should gracefully handle problems like missing javascript (intentionally or otherwise) or other resources. > Making UIs respond faster Requiring two additional HTTP requests (one to load javascript, and another to load the actual page content) isn't making the page faster. After the first request your javascript will be available most of the time for partial loads in any case. > interactive content That is rarely a good idea, but it's your page so do what you want. Progressive enhancement doesn't affect this at all.

frontendthing 10y ago

your feelings are not of interest here. If you want to create web apps on a professional level, you have to provide no-js fallback that works everywhere, that is the technical standard. Nobody is interested in how many hours you spend weekly to grow your beard.

dave2000 10y ago

> I feel like JS is an expected part of the web You feel wrong. I enable it when I have to, only. > How can you build engaging web applications Not my problem. I want quick loading sites with as few malware vectors as possible. You should be building web applications which facilitate the transfer of information. You don't need javascript and all the other crap people are using these days for that. I mean, if you're all about pure eye candy and doing..I dunno, mandelbrots or something in the browser, then yeah, you're going to need javascript. But it's not going to work on mobile. Hardly anything like that works on mobile, which is fine by me; I do most of my browsing there. To be honest, I think there's a market for a firefox addon which removes links to sites which don't work on mobile/require you to have javascript enabled to save me the effort of clicking back when i arrive at am empty page or when the screen is dimmed and all I can see is the corner of some dialog I have no interest in zooming out to look at.

Klathmon 10y ago
A few months ago I wrote a web-app that lets you pick an image off your computer, and convert it to a cross-stitch pattern. I did it using javascript entirely client side, so it works offline, it's secure (as it doesn't send the images anywhere), and it is fast to load (letting you change settings and get the new cross-stitch in the blink of an eye). With your idea of doing things, i would need to pay for a server (and would probably need to then charge my users who wouldn't pay, so it's now DOA), it would be significantly slower, it would be less secure/private, and wouldn't be able to do things like auto-change the size of the resulting image depending on the screen size of the browser (important for mobile! don't want to overload the browser with massive images). That needs javascript, and for you and others to keep acting like anything that uses javascript is a toy that shouldn't exist is arrogant and wrong.
- mixedCase 10y ago
  You should be shipping that as a browser extension. As it stands it's not good as a website, but it meets every criteria for a good extension. It's even the kind of thing that passes for a native application in Chrome OS.

Twirrim 10y ago

> How can you build engaging web applications if you are not even allowed to rely on standards like JS (e.g. if the user turns off JS)? What do you do for accessibility? Screen readers etc?

chriswarbo 10y ago

> How can you build engaging web applications if you are not even allowed to rely on standards like JS (e.g. if the user turns off JS)? I think it skews the conversation to talk about JS being "turned off", rather than unavailable, as it assumes that every user agent (browsers, screen readers, crawlers, CLI commands, etc.), even those cobbled together 5 minutes ago to do one quick job, is capable of running JS, has a DOM, is up to date, implements various APIs, that those APIs even make sense (what's the screen resolution of wget running in an SSH session?); and that the user has manually told it not to.