7 ms·

You are free to believe that. But let us say I want to cater both to you and to another user that browses the web with NoScript (assume it is my goal to cater t

You are free to believe that. But let us say I want to cater both to you and to another user that browses the web with NoScript (assume it is my goal to cater to as many users as possible). I have two options: A) make the layout accessible without JavaScript B) break the layout without JavaScript. Only with option A do I cater to both of you -- Regardless of deliberate breaking or bandied opinions ("Thou shalt never mix style and script").

freehunter 14y ago
The problem with NoScript is that it intentionally breaks the intended functionality of a website. I just went into the Firefox element inspector and deleted the code for the list of links on the HN homepage. Now they're gone! How dare PG not cater to my will to randomly disable parts of the website? You're free to browse the web with parts of it turned off. But you should expect that parts of it might not work, and if they don't work it should be immediately obvious why. Could Digg make it fall back? Yes. Should they? Only if they really want to. It seems they don't really want to. No one wants to cater to IE6 users, either.
- cutie 14y ago
  No, the web is constructed of separate markup, stylesheets, and code for good reasons. If you prefer a tangled, dependent mess enjoy the results. The advantages to a separation of concerns and the security risks of javascript are real. Otherwise, why not just go back to the bad old days of single, giant pages containing everything?
- jamesbritt 14y ago
  You're free to browse the web with parts of it turned off. But you should expect that parts of it might not work, and if they don't work it should be immediately obvious why. Yes, it should be immediately obvious, but often it isn't, and that's my biggest complaint with sites that rely on scripting for basic behavior. Too many times I've filled in a form, hit the Submit button, only to find that proper form submission does not work without scripting. Nothing on the page warned me, nothing stopped me from filling in the form, even though there are snake-simple ways to tell no-scripters of missing behavior, or to simply prevent bad behavior when scripting is turned off. (The other complaint I have is why sites rely on scripting to do things that are baked into HTML. For example, using divs as text areas instead of, say, using a textarea as a text areas.)
  - freehunter 14y ago
    Your final note is accurate, yes. But honestly, why should a web developer have to account for your niche-case decisions? Javascript is a perfectly valid language, and it's perfectly valid to assume that Javascript works in a browser since... it does. Normally. Why should I or anyone else have to add code specifically to tell users of NoScript that they need to be reasonable? You don't have to tell users of Mosaic that they need to upgrade to a browser made in the last 15 years. It's pretty obvious at this point. I use AdBlock and Ghostery to disable ads and Facebook buttons. But when I get to a sign in page and there's no links, I know that it's a Facebook login button. When I watch a video on Hulu and it doesn't load, I know that AdBlock is preventing me from seeing that show. But I don't go on forums and complain that developers should cater to me breaking their websites. I say to myself "oh hey, I've made a choice that broke this site. Let me take 5 seconds to fix it myself." "Your site doesn't work with NoScript" means the same thing to me as "they don't speak German at the Chicago McDonald's". I mean, that sucks for you, but honestly do you ever step back and wonder why that is?
    - jamesbritt 14y ago
      "Your site doesn't work with NoScript" means the same thing to me as "they don't speak German at the Chicago McDonald's". Not by a long shot. More like a sign in Braille explaining how to get further assistance if needed because not every sign the place may be accessible to the sightless. Why should I or anyone else have to add code specifically to tell users of NoScript that they need to be reasonable? Because so many sites use unreasonable scripting. NoScript is a reasonable defensive move because of too much aggressive scripting. Honestly, do you ever step back and wonder why NoScript even exists? Bottom line, though, is nobody has to do much of anything for anyone, and it's entirely up to the site owner to decide how they treat people with NoScript and what it's worth to add an additional 20 character or so of boilerplate text to a page. If nothing else it's a courtesy. It's just like smiling at people you deal with in stores or holding doors open for strangers. Do it, don't do it, whatever you think is proper. Make the world you want to live in. I get that my choices are niche, and that's OK. I can live with the downsides. There are very, very few sites I can't simply close a browser on if I don't care for how it's presented for me. No one loses any sleep. I suspect most people with NoScript use default blocking and whitelist sites as needed. So if I get a clear sign that I need scripting before I start doing anything, and it looks worth it, it's easy to allow the domain. That doesn't require any real effort from a developer, and if that's considered catering then we're all screwed.
mistercow 14y ago
>assume it is my goal to cater to as many users as possible The thing is, it's not your goal to cater to as many users as possible. It's your goal to optimize your ROI on development time. The reason we have to have laws about accessibility is that your average fast food place knows that wheelchair-bound hamburger sales will never make back the cost of constructing a wheelchair ramp. The economics of the situation wouldn't provide for disabled people, so we have to have regulation to make sure they get taken care of. (And before anyone jumps on that and misinterprets me, I am not comparing disabilities to turning off JavaScript. I'm simply showing by example that it is not good business to try to grab every possible customer at any cost.)
- dclowd9901 14y ago
  Indeed, I think your accessibility argument is spot-on. The same issues apply for making websites accessible. Thankfully, more often than not, it behooves a site to follow accessibility, because it falls in line with semantic web design, which in turn plays better with Google. Google search, in a way, is the regulatory body to keep sites semantic and accessible.
  - 385668 14y ago
    That's true, and at some point, I assume they'll make the site play well with noscript, but they've written the new version of the site from the ground up in six weeks with ten people. I'll give them some time to get things right.
- mirkules 14y ago
  I'm tired of having this argument over and over again, so let's approach this Javascript issue from a different angle: It is bad practice to couple content (the "what") with functionality (the "how"). The content itself should not depend on how it is displayed. From an engineering standpoint, this makes your code unmanageable and unmaintainable in the long run. These stupid shortcuts of forcing users to have Javascript on just to display content only cause me minor inconvenience, but it will cause you much more harm when it's maintenance or upgrade time. But you or everyone else on the JS bandwagon don't need to listen to me - I'll "temporarily allow" only the minimal amount of scripts on your page to see what I want to see and I will move on. You will need to live with this code during the next update cycle.
ruswick 14y ago
It wasn't their goal to cater to as many users as possible. Their goal was to build a MVP as quickly as possible.
eps 14y ago
Catering to NoScript users is dead simple - show them a broken website and they will whitelist it. Seriously though, NoScript user base is - and let me really blunt about it - a vocal minority with a bloated sense of entitlement. Catering to them makes no practical sense. There are obviously edge cases, but the best option is to put up a note that JS is required. If Digg doesn't have it, they should add it, but beyond that it's money wasted.
- cutie 14y ago
  If you need code to display a text document, you're doing it wrong. There is a philosophy (with some merit) of worse is better. So, let's be honest... you're promoting sloppy coupling in order to save developer time. The problem is that the technical debt will have to be paid back in the future.
- brigade 14y ago
  I see it the opposite - website designers have decided that they are entitled to decide what my keys and mouse clicks do, among other immensely annoying things. In short, no you are not. Get over yourselves.
  - baby 14y ago
    I bet you're less than 1% of digg's traffic and you just have to disable noscript to be able to browse it. It's not like you're stuck on IE because of your job.
    - brigade 14y ago
      What does IE have anything to do with this? I was pointing out that from my perspective, the entitlement of web developers has gotten so out of control that disabling JavaScript is the best way of making the general web tolerable to browse.
      - freehunter 14y ago
        IE has to be specifically coded for because it doesn't support modern web design fundamentals. NoScript users have to be specifically coded for because of the same reason. How often do you run into a website with Javascript that breaks your experience? Would it not be better to have a blacklist than a whitelist?

freehunter 14y ago

The problem with NoScript is that it intentionally breaks the intended functionality of a website. I just went into the Firefox element inspector and deleted the code for the list of links on the HN homepage. Now they're gone! How dare PG not cater to my will to randomly disable parts of the website? You're free to browse the web with parts of it turned off. But you should expect that parts of it might not work, and if they don't work it should be immediately obvious why. Could Digg make it fall back? Yes. Should they? Only if they really want to. It seems they don't really want to. No one wants to cater to IE6 users, either.

cutie 14y ago
No, the web is constructed of separate markup, stylesheets, and code for good reasons. If you prefer a tangled, dependent mess enjoy the results. The advantages to a separation of concerns and the security risks of javascript are real. Otherwise, why not just go back to the bad old days of single, giant pages containing everything?
jamesbritt 14y ago
You're free to browse the web with parts of it turned off. But you should expect that parts of it might not work, and if they don't work it should be immediately obvious why. Yes, it should be immediately obvious, but often it isn't, and that's my biggest complaint with sites that rely on scripting for basic behavior. Too many times I've filled in a form, hit the Submit button, only to find that proper form submission does not work without scripting. Nothing on the page warned me, nothing stopped me from filling in the form, even though there are snake-simple ways to tell no-scripters of missing behavior, or to simply prevent bad behavior when scripting is turned off. (The other complaint I have is why sites rely on scripting to do things that are baked into HTML. For example, using divs as text areas instead of, say, using a textarea as a text areas.)
- freehunter 14y ago
  Your final note is accurate, yes. But honestly, why should a web developer have to account for your niche-case decisions? Javascript is a perfectly valid language, and it's perfectly valid to assume that Javascript works in a browser since... it does. Normally. Why should I or anyone else have to add code specifically to tell users of NoScript that they need to be reasonable? You don't have to tell users of Mosaic that they need to upgrade to a browser made in the last 15 years. It's pretty obvious at this point. I use AdBlock and Ghostery to disable ads and Facebook buttons. But when I get to a sign in page and there's no links, I know that it's a Facebook login button. When I watch a video on Hulu and it doesn't load, I know that AdBlock is preventing me from seeing that show. But I don't go on forums and complain that developers should cater to me breaking their websites. I say to myself "oh hey, I've made a choice that broke this site. Let me take 5 seconds to fix it myself." "Your site doesn't work with NoScript" means the same thing to me as "they don't speak German at the Chicago McDonald's". I mean, that sucks for you, but honestly do you ever step back and wonder why that is?
  - jamesbritt 14y ago
    "Your site doesn't work with NoScript" means the same thing to me as "they don't speak German at the Chicago McDonald's". Not by a long shot. More like a sign in Braille explaining how to get further assistance if needed because not every sign the place may be accessible to the sightless. Why should I or anyone else have to add code specifically to tell users of NoScript that they need to be reasonable? Because so many sites use unreasonable scripting. NoScript is a reasonable defensive move because of too much aggressive scripting. Honestly, do you ever step back and wonder why NoScript even exists? Bottom line, though, is nobody has to do much of anything for anyone, and it's entirely up to the site owner to decide how they treat people with NoScript and what it's worth to add an additional 20 character or so of boilerplate text to a page. If nothing else it's a courtesy. It's just like smiling at people you deal with in stores or holding doors open for strangers. Do it, don't do it, whatever you think is proper. Make the world you want to live in. I get that my choices are niche, and that's OK. I can live with the downsides. There are very, very few sites I can't simply close a browser on if I don't care for how it's presented for me. No one loses any sleep. I suspect most people with NoScript use default blocking and whitelist sites as needed. So if I get a clear sign that I need scripting before I start doing anything, and it looks worth it, it's easy to allow the domain. That doesn't require any real effort from a developer, and if that's considered catering then we're all screwed.

mistercow 14y ago

>assume it is my goal to cater to as many users as possible The thing is, it's not your goal to cater to as many users as possible. It's your goal to optimize your ROI on development time. The reason we have to have laws about accessibility is that your average fast food place knows that wheelchair-bound hamburger sales will never make back the cost of constructing a wheelchair ramp. The economics of the situation wouldn't provide for disabled people, so we have to have regulation to make sure they get taken care of. (And before anyone jumps on that and misinterprets me, I am not comparing disabilities to turning off JavaScript. I'm simply showing by example that it is not good business to try to grab every possible customer at any cost.)

dclowd9901 14y ago
Indeed, I think your accessibility argument is spot-on. The same issues apply for making websites accessible. Thankfully, more often than not, it behooves a site to follow accessibility, because it falls in line with semantic web design, which in turn plays better with Google. Google search, in a way, is the regulatory body to keep sites semantic and accessible.
- 385668 14y ago
  That's true, and at some point, I assume they'll make the site play well with noscript, but they've written the new version of the site from the ground up in six weeks with ten people. I'll give them some time to get things right.
mirkules 14y ago
I'm tired of having this argument over and over again, so let's approach this Javascript issue from a different angle: It is bad practice to couple content (the "what") with functionality (the "how"). The content itself should not depend on how it is displayed. From an engineering standpoint, this makes your code unmanageable and unmaintainable in the long run. These stupid shortcuts of forcing users to have Javascript on just to display content only cause me minor inconvenience, but it will cause you much more harm when it's maintenance or upgrade time. But you or everyone else on the JS bandwagon don't need to listen to me - I'll "temporarily allow" only the minimal amount of scripts on your page to see what I want to see and I will move on. You will need to live with this code during the next update cycle.

ruswick 14y ago

It wasn't their goal to cater to as many users as possible. Their goal was to build a MVP as quickly as possible.

eps 14y ago

Catering to NoScript users is dead simple - show them a broken website and they will whitelist it. Seriously though, NoScript user base is - and let me really blunt about it - a vocal minority with a bloated sense of entitlement. Catering to them makes no practical sense. There are obviously edge cases, but the best option is to put up a note that JS is required. If Digg doesn't have it, they should add it, but beyond that it's money wasted.

cutie 14y ago
If you need code to display a text document, you're doing it wrong. There is a philosophy (with some merit) of worse is better. So, let's be honest... you're promoting sloppy coupling in order to save developer time. The problem is that the technical debt will have to be paid back in the future.
brigade 14y ago
I see it the opposite - website designers have decided that they are entitled to decide what my keys and mouse clicks do, among other immensely annoying things. In short, no you are not. Get over yourselves.
- baby 14y ago
  I bet you're less than 1% of digg's traffic and you just have to disable noscript to be able to browse it. It's not like you're stuck on IE because of your job.
  - brigade 14y ago
    What does IE have anything to do with this? I was pointing out that from my perspective, the entitlement of web developers has gotten so out of control that disabling JavaScript is the best way of making the general web tolerable to browse.
    - freehunter 14y ago
      IE has to be specifically coded for because it doesn't support modern web design fundamentals. NoScript users have to be specifically coded for because of the same reason. How often do you run into a website with Javascript that breaks your experience? Would it not be better to have a blacklist than a whitelist?