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JS interpreter is a negligible charge if the program running does not consume too much resources. Also JS makes the web less "accessible": Think about handicap

JS interpreter is a negligible charge if the program running does not consume too much resources. Also JS makes the web less "accessible": Think about handicapped people who can't use IE / FF / Safari. Avoiding Javascript is one's personal choice. Ideally Javascript should not be mandatory for surfing.

jpeterson 18y ago
For simple surfing, you're right—javascript should not be mandatory. But if you're expecting to use any kind of interactive application (say, an email client, for example), I think it's fair to assume some sort of JS requirement there.
- silencio 18y ago
  what's more fair is to use javascript and flash and the like appropriately, but to provide at least some sort of fallback for the users who cannot access it for whatever reason, even if it's only to spit out an error saying "sorry this page requires x, y, z to be enabled". I do a lot of work for and with visually disabled folks, and it's usually the lack of any sort of fallback that's a problem. Can't tell if something changed, can't read captchas..you get the idea. The problem with that situation is, of course, that a lot of them are using javascript-enabled modern browsers like ie7 and firefox and safari and usually not a cli browser like links, so they come across these huge webapps like the new yahoo mail that they cannot navigate at ALL very often. It's quite frustrating.
9oliYQjP 18y ago
I'm honestly asking because I don't know the answer to the following question, though it may sound facetious. Are computing assistants for handicapped people in such a sorry state that: 1. for those that can't see well or at all, that they can't read off the screen using not the underlying HTML source, but the current DOM and layout state to determine a reasonable way to read out the screen? 2. they offer no help for those people that have problems with precise mouse movement? Quite frankly, the whole accessibility argument appears to be a red herring unless the state of accessibility technology is such that it is crap and is not progressive. Even properly coded Flash (much like "proper" XHTML with CSS layouts) is accessible to screen readers these days and has been for the past couple of versions. We didn't stop building multi-level buildings to accommodate people in wheelchairs, we just added ramps and elevators. I'm not willing to stop using javascript because of crap accessibility assistants. However, I am perfectly ready and willing to to build the equivalent ramp and elevator into my javascript functionality. There is nothing fundamentally inaccessible about using javascript. If it were such a big problem, Cocoa applications or .NET applications would be inaccessible too. But they aren't (http://developer.apple.com/ue/accessibility/universalaccess.html http://developer.apple.com/ue/accessibility/universalaccess....) and in fact often have specifically added the necessary ramps/elevators so that they are accessible.
- silencio 18y ago
  The thing about Cocoa accessibility is that Apple does that all in-house. All the universal access tools and Voiceover (the screenreader) are theirs, plus they're the ones working on Cocoa. Almost nobody else has anything like it..there are a couple of third party tools I can think of, but nothing like what comes built in. On the other hand, Windows has the support of all the big names (cough freedom scientific) but there's a lot more diversity in terms of development. But they have to work with Microsoft and other third party devs and it's not perfect - one example I can think of is Firefox support in Jaws, which came only when Firefox was at like version 1.5 or 2ish. It's still not as good as msie support today. I might add that Cocoa apps are pretty accessible, but Firefox in all its xul etc. glory on OS X is mostly inaccessible with voiceover. And the main problem with web accessibility is that people just don't give a crap. There are plenty of ways to get a site to be fairly accessible using any of the main screenreaders and other accessibility tools out there. But it's apparently a complete waste of time and not worth the effort. Some of the biggest companies and websites are guilty of this - like Yahoo and their "newish" Mail webapp. Google is definitely a lot better in this aspect. So no, you don't have to stop using javascript, you just have to give more of a consideration to the small percentage of potential users (depending on your audience) that may need additional tools to use your website. If it proves impossible, just create like a "text only" version of the site up at the top of the source but hidden, so screenreaders could read that but normal visitors won't see. But I doubt you'd have to go that far. See a site like http://www.jkrowling.com/ http://www.jkrowling.com/ for an example. I don't know why they did it the way they did, but they have the regular flash site in different languages, then the accessibility-enabled flash version, and then the text-only. I guess that covers everyone ;) Mouse movement is another matter - that's actually quite personal to me because I have tremors that sometimes makes it hard to accurately do things with a mouse. But there's plenty of software and hardware devices out there for people with movement disorders. It's not as big of a problem as it is for, say, the visually disabled. Ultimately I'd have to say it's not just the accessibility tools at fault here.
  - 9oliYQjP 18y ago
    Like I mentioned in a parent comment, I wrote my comment after working on a web application. If you see my comment there, I mention that I'm not quite sure how I could possibly make the interface accessible in any meaningful way for a blind person. I could give them a text only version of the web app, maybe that had a more linear and modal interface. But it would be about as accessible as some XML formats are human readable. I mean technically they're human readable but can you read them? I know I can't! :-) Simple informational websites have no excuses today for not being accessible. As you have shown, there are simply too many options for these sites for them to turn a blind eye to any one of them. But simple informational websites appear to be a dying breed. There are several streams of information being presented to users on most websites. Trying to force them all to be accessible seems to me about as ridiculous as mandating that CNN require their closed captioning feeds to have not only what the talking head is saying, but the news ticker, the stock quotes, etc. that are also thrown on the screen at the same time; oh and this closed captioning feed needs to be backward compatible with an analog 21 inch Sanyo TV :) It frustrates me that HTML+CSS+Javascript web applications will be at an inherent disadvantage here unless we as an industry come up with some sort of convention. We could start with some notification event model, or even something as simple as saying that if your HTML markup sports an accessibility meta tag, that all DOM objects with the class name accessibility-hidden should be ignored by screen readers and that those with the class name accessibility-display should be picked up by the screen reader. The reading order of each element could even be specified by adding a class read-N to DOM elements where N >= 0 and denotes the priority of reading. If we had something like this, at least I could hide parts of my user interface from a blind person (no pun intended!) and show them only the most important and relevant information to achieve the primary task at hand.
silencio 18y ago
Some _can_ use IE/FF/Safari, but when they come across ajax-heavy webapps it's like "what the?!". Plus it is entirely possible to make a fairly accessible shiny web2.0 webapp (e.g. gmail even without the simpler html mode and google reader with aria support)...although they are generally in the minority. A very, very small minority are going to have a browser with no javascript support. It's important to have some sort of fallback, but I guess it also depends on your audience. No point in spending that time if all you're doing is catering to teens to advertise something, for example.

jpeterson 18y ago

For simple surfing, you're right—javascript should not be mandatory. But if you're expecting to use any kind of interactive application (say, an email client, for example), I think it's fair to assume some sort of JS requirement there.

silencio 18y ago
what's more fair is to use javascript and flash and the like appropriately, but to provide at least some sort of fallback for the users who cannot access it for whatever reason, even if it's only to spit out an error saying "sorry this page requires x, y, z to be enabled". I do a lot of work for and with visually disabled folks, and it's usually the lack of any sort of fallback that's a problem. Can't tell if something changed, can't read captchas..you get the idea. The problem with that situation is, of course, that a lot of them are using javascript-enabled modern browsers like ie7 and firefox and safari and usually not a cli browser like links, so they come across these huge webapps like the new yahoo mail that they cannot navigate at ALL very often. It's quite frustrating.

9oliYQjP 18y ago

I'm honestly asking because I don't know the answer to the following question, though it may sound facetious. Are computing assistants for handicapped people in such a sorry state that: 1. for those that can't see well or at all, that they can't read off the screen using not the underlying HTML source, but the current DOM and layout state to determine a reasonable way to read out the screen? 2. they offer no help for those people that have problems with precise mouse movement? Quite frankly, the whole accessibility argument appears to be a red herring unless the state of accessibility technology is such that it is crap and is not progressive. Even properly coded Flash (much like "proper" XHTML with CSS layouts) is accessible to screen readers these days and has been for the past couple of versions. We didn't stop building multi-level buildings to accommodate people in wheelchairs, we just added ramps and elevators. I'm not willing to stop using javascript because of crap accessibility assistants. However, I am perfectly ready and willing to to build the equivalent ramp and elevator into my javascript functionality. There is nothing fundamentally inaccessible about using javascript. If it were such a big problem, Cocoa applications or .NET applications would be inaccessible too. But they aren't (http://developer.apple.com/ue/accessibility/universalaccess.html http://developer.apple.com/ue/accessibility/universalaccess....) and in fact often have specifically added the necessary ramps/elevators so that they are accessible.

silencio 18y ago
The thing about Cocoa accessibility is that Apple does that all in-house. All the universal access tools and Voiceover (the screenreader) are theirs, plus they're the ones working on Cocoa. Almost nobody else has anything like it..there are a couple of third party tools I can think of, but nothing like what comes built in. On the other hand, Windows has the support of all the big names (cough freedom scientific) but there's a lot more diversity in terms of development. But they have to work with Microsoft and other third party devs and it's not perfect - one example I can think of is Firefox support in Jaws, which came only when Firefox was at like version 1.5 or 2ish. It's still not as good as msie support today. I might add that Cocoa apps are pretty accessible, but Firefox in all its xul etc. glory on OS X is mostly inaccessible with voiceover. And the main problem with web accessibility is that people just don't give a crap. There are plenty of ways to get a site to be fairly accessible using any of the main screenreaders and other accessibility tools out there. But it's apparently a complete waste of time and not worth the effort. Some of the biggest companies and websites are guilty of this - like Yahoo and their "newish" Mail webapp. Google is definitely a lot better in this aspect. So no, you don't have to stop using javascript, you just have to give more of a consideration to the small percentage of potential users (depending on your audience) that may need additional tools to use your website. If it proves impossible, just create like a "text only" version of the site up at the top of the source but hidden, so screenreaders could read that but normal visitors won't see. But I doubt you'd have to go that far. See a site like http://www.jkrowling.com/ http://www.jkrowling.com/ for an example. I don't know why they did it the way they did, but they have the regular flash site in different languages, then the accessibility-enabled flash version, and then the text-only. I guess that covers everyone ;) Mouse movement is another matter - that's actually quite personal to me because I have tremors that sometimes makes it hard to accurately do things with a mouse. But there's plenty of software and hardware devices out there for people with movement disorders. It's not as big of a problem as it is for, say, the visually disabled. Ultimately I'd have to say it's not just the accessibility tools at fault here.
- 9oliYQjP 18y ago
  Like I mentioned in a parent comment, I wrote my comment after working on a web application. If you see my comment there, I mention that I'm not quite sure how I could possibly make the interface accessible in any meaningful way for a blind person. I could give them a text only version of the web app, maybe that had a more linear and modal interface. But it would be about as accessible as some XML formats are human readable. I mean technically they're human readable but can you read them? I know I can't! :-) Simple informational websites have no excuses today for not being accessible. As you have shown, there are simply too many options for these sites for them to turn a blind eye to any one of them. But simple informational websites appear to be a dying breed. There are several streams of information being presented to users on most websites. Trying to force them all to be accessible seems to me about as ridiculous as mandating that CNN require their closed captioning feeds to have not only what the talking head is saying, but the news ticker, the stock quotes, etc. that are also thrown on the screen at the same time; oh and this closed captioning feed needs to be backward compatible with an analog 21 inch Sanyo TV :) It frustrates me that HTML+CSS+Javascript web applications will be at an inherent disadvantage here unless we as an industry come up with some sort of convention. We could start with some notification event model, or even something as simple as saying that if your HTML markup sports an accessibility meta tag, that all DOM objects with the class name accessibility-hidden should be ignored by screen readers and that those with the class name accessibility-display should be picked up by the screen reader. The reading order of each element could even be specified by adding a class read-N to DOM elements where N >= 0 and denotes the priority of reading. If we had something like this, at least I could hide parts of my user interface from a blind person (no pun intended!) and show them only the most important and relevant information to achieve the primary task at hand.

silencio 18y ago

Some _can_ use IE/FF/Safari, but when they come across ajax-heavy webapps it's like "what the?!". Plus it is entirely possible to make a fairly accessible shiny web2.0 webapp (e.g. gmail even without the simpler html mode and google reader with aria support)...although they are generally in the minority. A very, very small minority are going to have a browser with no javascript support. It's important to have some sort of fallback, but I guess it also depends on your audience. No point in spending that time if all you're doing is catering to teens to advertise something, for example.