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Yes. Use JavaScript for adding rows and validation, and fallback to new requests for both tasks if JavaScript is disabled. This is not difficult to do.
by zonidjan 7y ago
Yes. Use JavaScript for adding rows and validation, and fallback to new requests for both tasks if JavaScript is disabled. This is not difficult to do.
- davnicwil 7y agoIt's not difficult to do, I agree, but time spent doing it, testing it, maintaining it carries the opportunity cost of doing other things that may be more valuable. Usually, such things are in abundance and take priority over supporting browsers without JS. For the vast majority of apps and businesses, JS as a minimum entry requirement is a perfectly acceptable tradeoff of lost users vs additional development cost.
- zonidjan 7y agoI don't disagree. Heck, all of the websites I maintain for work require JS (although to be fair I also control the requirements for users: the latest version of Firefox or Chrome). I do wish the cost of requiring JavaScript was higher, though.
- davnicwil 7y agoGenuinely interested, not assuming/implying I'm right - why? I think just insisting on JS is, for most applications, the best thing for the most people. If the app is such that it has maximum availability as one of its top goals (government public service, public infrastructure, bill paying etc) I completely get it, but otherwise I'm just not convinced that not requiring JS is somehow inherently good. If you'll allow a pretty weak analogy, it's almost like refusing to use a car and insisting upon using a horse and cart. You may have your own good reasons for doing that, and that's completely fine, you are free to make that choice, but you absolutely should expect the modern roads not to cater to you, and to be very often inconvenienced. Indeed, you shouldn't really expect society to spend lots of tax money catering to your choice and designing all roads, junctions, etc with it in mind, beyond the very minimum level so you can at least use the most important roads.
- ptx 7y agoIt's more like suggesting that perhaps sometimes walking is better than taking a car, while more fashionable developers insist on trying to use the car to go from the kitchen to the living room. And you still have to walk to the car.
- zonidjan 7y agoI would use instead the analogy of a car and a bike. And indeed society does cater toward the bike, in many places. But rather than any analogy, think about how many times more powerful a modern computer is than a computer from 2000. Now think about how many times more "things" you can do on that computer simultaneously. The latter is much smaller than the former.
- dillonmckay 7y agoWell, it depends on who your users are and the regulatory requirements you are operating within. A US college or university site can be sued for lack of Section 508 compliace. So, it goes beyond development costs to legal risk of lack of compliance. OTOH, a site selling cars probably does not need to worry about potential car-buyers using screen-readers.
- davnicwil 7y agoAs other comments have pointed out, there is no causal relationship between the use of JS and lack of accessibility, screen reader compatibility etc. So supporting no-JS and being accessible are two different concerns. I'm absolutely all for accessibility and would never argue against making things accessible as part of some cost-based tradeoff. Frankly this shouldn't even be an issue that comes up if you 'just do things right' from the get go - but even if it does, the imperative is always on you to just fix it. There might be a correlation where apps that happen to use JS are more likely to be written in a way which is less accessible by default, but that's another conversation. With that out the way - totally agree with you, for certain apps with regulatory requirements insisting that JS not be required for use, that's what you do - and for good reason - max availability to anyone for public services etc - that makes complete sense.
- dillonmckay 7y agoI don’t disagree. The point I may have misunderstood is putting development effort into a SPA that only uses JS and works well with a screenreader versus the non-JS alternative that also works well with a screenreader. Of course, it depends on where in the development process the developer becomes ‘aware’ of making the site compliant. As you said, ‘do the right thing from the get go’.