3 ms·
Thanks. Its insane how "Twitter, but for tech nerds" has a hard requirement to either enable Javascript or download some app.
by weberer 27d ago
Thanks. Its insane how "Twitter, but for tech nerds" has a hard requirement to either enable Javascript or download some app.
- sillysaurusx 27d agoI had a nice mobile experience. It asks you to log in or create an account, but it’s along the bottom, and you can read all the content fine.
- fragmede 27d ago"Certifiably insane" to enable JavaScript, which was invented in 1995, or install an app, which first happened on the Palm series of smartphones in 1996. Either of those are "certifiably insane"? For reference, the term neurodiversity was coined circa 1998.
- mdp2021 27d agoJS or installing special software to view HTTP served text from the web?! Yes, that makes no sense at all.
- serf 27d agoNeither the invention date or the mental health terminology have anything to do with the fact that js being commonplace is a privacy and security nightmare -- which was actually the point.
- micromacrofoot 27d agoJavaScript asceticism is a weird trend that has just never died out, no one treats any other language this way... and "privacy and security nightmare" can be used to describe most of the internet at this point with or without it
- tomrod 27d agoIt can certainly come across as a "weird trend" but I've found that the most insistent for disabling JS are the folks who have deep knowledge of browsers and the security plane running webapps. YMMV.
- micromacrofoot 27d agoI don't drive a car because I have deep knowledge of mortality statistics, but I don't complain when I can't easily get somewhere 100 miles away
- Dylan16807 27d agoShowing a paragraph of text with some social links around it is like going down the block. If that requires a car you do have a problem.
- micromacrofoot 27d agoyeah but it's an extreme fringe choice... I too make extreme fringe choices but I don't expect 99.9% of the people who don't make my extreme fringe choice to change on my behalf hell, use a browser in a sandbox if you're that paranoid there are a number of ways to do this securely, at this point it's practically a child's tantrum but sure maybe it just needs a couple more decades of complaining in obscure comment sections and everyone will finally get it and switch back to mailing lists
- rezonant 27d agoooh, don't forget irc
- swiftcoder 27d ago> JavaScript asceticism is a weird trend that has just never died out, no one treats any other language this way I'm not aware of any other language that is layered on top of a perfectly serviceable user-facing content delivery syntax?
- alt227 27d agoLiterally any scripting language? I have managed to get 35 years into a sysadmin career without knowing or writing a single line of python. I see a python script, I run a million miles away and wont touch it with a barge pole.
- kevin_thibedeau 27d agoJS is a vector for browser exploits and privacy invasion. No other language is commonly used for these things.
- alt227 27d agoNot even things like batch files and visual basic scripts on windows? Everyone seems to forget we had decades of dodgy scripts and activex controls in our browsers for years before javascript became the thing it is today.
- kevin_thibedeau 27d agoThey were never widely disseminated over a network. Office VBA exploits only lasted as a widespread threat until MS locked down macros by default. JS has been around much longer than that.
- Dusseldorf 27d agoI can't recall ever needing to run a batch script to read a paragraph on a website, so doesn't seem like a very apt comparison. Are you claiming there's some group of people who have JavaScript disabled but would be happily running Activex if it were still around? Seems reasonable for some people to dislike and disable JavaScript in 2026, even though another, separate group of people had ActiveX enabled in 2009.
- micromacrofoot 27d agopngs in emails are used for this http headers and CSS is used for this flash drives left on the ground outside are used for this
- account42 27d agoThat's because no other language is pushed in a place where people are requesting documents.
- account42 27d agoYou don't start being sane just because you stubbornly keep the insanity up for long enough.
- 0points 27d agoFWIF, way back when, Twitter was the "Twitter for tech nerds". Lots of water under the fridge since...
- reactordev 27d ago“Just place all that corporate malware on the X, X marks the spot”
- taylor-tg 27d agoJust have to remember that it's X, not Y, that marks the spot.
- weberer 27d agoThat's not how I remember it. Ever since the beginning circa 2008, it was the one site that was being pushed hard by the mainstream media, celebrities, and marketers. None of it was organic. All the tech nerds were on sites like Digg, old Reddit, or Slashdot.
- hnlmorg 27d agoEarly Twitter was used loads by tech nerds as a notifications API. There definitely was a community of experimentation back in early days.
- 0points 27d agoHow you remembered it is anecdotal, it's not relevant for the discussion unless you add something of value. Way back when is not when it broke mainstream. It's when the service started getting attention. It was literally pitched as a "micro blog site" for techies to communicate news, and the "app" was 160 character SMS messages. Nerds used it as a free (as in beer) way of sending alert SMS on server errors. (At least I did). In 2008, twitter had already started to become mainstream, quickly shifting focus away from nerd interests.
- kapitanjakc 27d agoWhat is the meaning of FWIF ? Google says "For what it's worth", won't that be FWIW ?
- magnat 27d agoEspecially when the page source actually contains all the content (so no need to fetch it in JS), part of which is even presented in title.
- masfuerte 27d agoIt has the content three times (not including the title). Once in json (as escaped html) and twice in meta tags (as plain text). They used to have it in plain html too but that got hidden then removed. You see read the unescaped html here: https://beige.party/users/intransitivelie/statuses/117057396732763183/activity https://beige.party/users/intransitivelie/statuses/117057396... No stinking js or app required!
- smallerize 27d agohttps://beige.party/@intransitivelie.rss https://beige.party/@intransitivelie.rss
- mindslight 27d agoIt's understandable when you see that the ethos is to have software that represents the user in charge of the rendering, rather than centralizing it all on the server. There is a major difference between common "app store apps" or hostile javascript bundled with websites, versus software that's been written to work in the user's interest. However as they use similar delivery methods, it's understandable that it takes a minute to think through and revisit your assumptions that have lead to being default anti- javascript or app.
- Dylan16807 27d agoThat makes sense until you remember what "rendering" is supposed to mean. Forming the HTML has no reason to be client side when you're using the site-provided experience. Yes provide a json version for other clients, but for direct viewing just send the paragraph of text in a usable form and let the javascript be an optional upgrade.
- peri-cl 27d agoMastodons will also respond to a plain "application/json" HTTP request, no cruft, curl 'https://beige.party/api/v1/statuses/117057396732763183' | jq '.content'
- kevin_thibedeau 27d agoIf only we had a tool that could directly let us browse through this as human readable text.
- nozzlegear 27d agoMine's called Safari
- throawayonthe 27d agowhat, like an app?
- jasonm23 27d agoobscure fruit based cli tool.
- lucas_t_a 27d agoi think they call it a web browser, but it looks like it does not do that most of the time.
- jasonm23 27d agocurl -s 'https://beige.party/api/v1/statuses/117057396732763183' | jq '.content' | glow for those terminauts who have incurable presentation ocd
- tomrod 27d agoTreating HTML as a bootloader for an app has always felt like the wrong pattern to me. Outside of Authn/passkeys, it would seem a person could do basically everything in HTML (but, to be frank, I am not a front end dev and would welcome correction).
- tantalor 27d agoPatches welcome
- smart_asslop 27d ago>Patches welcome Are they, though? Or are you just parroting the meme? (The last I recall, Gargron's position was essentially "build your own third-party frontend if you want noJS".)
- tantalor 27d agoThat's what I meant
- deleted 27d ago[deleted]
- mr_mitm 27d agoHow is that different from email, IRC, instant messaging, or anything else nerds use?
- Sharlin 27d agoWebmail is perfectly possible, if clunky,without JS. That's how they used to work. IRC and IM require real-time updates of some sort, which is a reasonable use for JS. A Twitter clone shouldn't require JS just to render a page.
- mr_mitm 27d agoYou also can run a Mastodon application server side and serve server-rendered pages. I'm not aware of anyone having done that yet, but, you know, be the change you want to see. It's probably got privacy implications.
- fweimer 27d agoPublic email and IRC archives/logs usually work just fine without Javascript.
- padjo 27d agoI really don't think that describes my Mastodon experience. Twitter for people with a conscience would be more accurate.
- AuthAuth 27d agoThere are a lot of people on Mastodon who are genuinely as insane as X users. I recently opened up my account and saw people engaging with al quds brigade accounts.
- GlacierFox 27d agoI've found it to be full of completely out of touch basement-type neck beards with questionable consciences. They're both shit holes.
- Imustaskforhelp 27d ago> Thanks. Its insane how "Twitter, but for tech nerds" has a hard requirement to either enable Javascript or download some app. https://masto.mirror.forum/beige.party/@intransitivelie/117057396732763183 https://masto.mirror.forum/beige.party/@intransitivelie/1170... Source code: https://github.com/SerJaimeLannister/mastoview https://github.com/SerJaimeLannister/mastoview (Disclaimer: It's vibe-coded. It does server side rendering to then just give pure HTML to the end user with no JS required.) I hope that this helps people who want to view Mastodon without JS.
- j3s 27d agoim sorry but expecting sites to work properly without javascript in 2026 is basically denialism
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 27d agoAlternative URL, no Javascript, no app: https://beige.party/@intransitivelie/117057396732763183.json https://beige.party/@intransitivelie/117057396732763183.json view-source:http://beige.party/@intransitivelie/117057396732763183.json The toot also appears in "<meta content=" view-source:https://beige.party/@intransitivelie/117057396732763183 curl https://beige.party/@intransitivelie/117057396732763183.json \ |grep -o "<p>.*<p>" > 1.htm firefox ./1.htm