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It’s extreme developer specific tunnel vision to think removing JS would be good. Your comment is pretty ironic because that same sentiment (“this is how I see

It’s extreme developer specific tunnel vision to think removing JS would be good. Your comment is pretty ironic because that same sentiment (“this is how I see the world”) is what makes the web so inaccessible for disabled people.

tomrod 5y ago
I disagree. They speak from experience. Removing JS from the user experience simplifies the developer's toolset to a subset which is usually also accessible. There is still room for beloved JS, such as serving ads, tracking user behavior, mining crypto on unsuspecting users' computers, centering a div, and all the other arcane utilities for which one disables JS in the browser for.
- rajin444 5y ago
  Accessibility and JS are not mutually exclusive. It's just much easier to do accessibility without JS.
  - tomrod 5y ago
    Exactly. Removing JS simplifies a developers toolkit to a subset that is also often accessible.
  - shadowgovt 5y ago
    Correct. More specifically, the HTML standard itself has quite a bit of accessibility friendliness baked in, and the remainder has been patched over by screen readers and other tools successfully due to sheer age of the standard. When you make the site self-modifying with JavaScript, you as the developer are taking on the responsibility of continuing that chain of wise design decisions. And much like the thought that you probably shouldn't roll your own crypto unless you're a cryptography expert, maybe bending the user experience too far is something you shouldn't do unless you have some accessibility training.
Firmwarrior 5y ago
Man, I'm really surprised anyone here actually seems to like JavaScript I use so few websites that legitimately need it.. looking at my open tabs right now, I have Gmail, Discord, and Coderpad that legitimately implemented interactive web applications with JavaScript, and then every other one of the 20 tabs is just a static website that uses JavaScript as a weapon to track me and interfere with me in various ways
- userbinator 5y ago
  I'm not surprised, if you look at the front-page articles a lot of the time there will be something about the latest JS framework. HN has a significant number of web developers in its userbase. Gmail has a static HTML version too.

tomrod 5y ago

I disagree. They speak from experience. Removing JS from the user experience simplifies the developer's toolset to a subset which is usually also accessible. There is still room for beloved JS, such as serving ads, tracking user behavior, mining crypto on unsuspecting users' computers, centering a div, and all the other arcane utilities for which one disables JS in the browser for.

rajin444 5y ago
Accessibility and JS are not mutually exclusive. It's just much easier to do accessibility without JS.
- tomrod 5y ago
  Exactly. Removing JS simplifies a developers toolkit to a subset that is also often accessible.
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  Correct. More specifically, the HTML standard itself has quite a bit of accessibility friendliness baked in, and the remainder has been patched over by screen readers and other tools successfully due to sheer age of the standard. When you make the site self-modifying with JavaScript, you as the developer are taking on the responsibility of continuing that chain of wise design decisions. And much like the thought that you probably shouldn't roll your own crypto unless you're a cryptography expert, maybe bending the user experience too far is something you shouldn't do unless you have some accessibility training.

Firmwarrior 5y ago

Man, I'm really surprised anyone here actually seems to like JavaScript I use so few websites that legitimately need it.. looking at my open tabs right now, I have Gmail, Discord, and Coderpad that legitimately implemented interactive web applications with JavaScript, and then every other one of the 20 tabs is just a static website that uses JavaScript as a weapon to track me and interfere with me in various ways

userbinator 5y ago
I'm not surprised, if you look at the front-page articles a lot of the time there will be something about the latest JS framework. HN has a significant number of web developers in its userbase. Gmail has a static HTML version too.