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Everything about this article reads like it was written in 2011. "elements that aren’t div exist primarily as a nostalgic throwback to a gentler era." Um, have

by spb 13y ago

Everything about this article reads like it was written in 2011. "elements that aren’t div exist primarily as a nostalgic throwback to a gentler era." Um, have you looked at the HTML5 spec lately? Or used Bootstrap? Or any other significant CSS framework developed in the last 2 years? It's div/span class adornments for structure that's on its way out. And this, incidentally, is why NoScript is a terrible idea: the web is evolving. As new standards are proposed and targeted, JavaScript polyfills to support new baseline HTML/CSS features are a necessity for sustainable future-and-past-proof development in the modern Web ecosystem. Turning off JavaScript everywhere because you don't like experimentation and want to pretend the world froze in your golden years is narrow-minded and bullheaded.

marrs 13y ago
JavaScript polyfills to support new baseline HTML/CSS features are a necessity for sustainable future-and-past-proof development in the modern Web ecosystem. They're very important, but your site should still be usable without them. Turning off JavaScript everywhere because you don't like experimentation and want to pretend the world froze in your golden years is narrow-minded and bullheaded. More like the other way round: abandoning best practices so that you can play with a shiny new framework is what is bullheaded. If you want to play, do it on a side project or in your spare time. Don't do it in production code unless you can truly justify it. Every public facing site that I write works reliably in IE8 without JS. From that base line the experience only gets better until it's every bit as good as the site that abandons IE or no-script agents. Now, guess whose site is search engine friendly from the outset; guess whose is more user friendly because it more closely aligns to expected browser behaviour; guess whose has a lower load time because the server can deliver a pre-rendered HTML page to the browser; guess which one doesn't just die because ad-block was installed?
dictum 13y ago
> JavaScript polyfills to support new baseline HTML/CSS features are a necessity for sustainable future-and-past-proof development in the modern Web ecosystem I'd wager that most people who disable Javascript are using a modern browser with a good blocklist/whitelist system, e.g. Firefox with NoScript. For instance, if your website needs Flexbox, your CSS will work even on Firefox 25 with NoScript. Flexbox won't work on IE8 with JS off, but that's honestly OK. Progressive enhancement will still allow the visitor to read the content and interact with the page, the only issue is that the elements won't be positioned as intended by the designer. If you're willing to invest more time to support even IE8 with JS off, you could use Sass to more or less replicate Flexbox with floats etc. Usually, until a CSS/HTML feature is supported by at least two major browsers, it's not a good idea to use it in production.

by spb 13y ago

marrs 13y ago

JavaScript polyfills to support new baseline HTML/CSS features are a necessity for sustainable future-and-past-proof development in the modern Web ecosystem. They're very important, but your site should still be usable without them. Turning off JavaScript everywhere because you don't like experimentation and want to pretend the world froze in your golden years is narrow-minded and bullheaded. More like the other way round: abandoning best practices so that you can play with a shiny new framework is what is bullheaded. If you want to play, do it on a side project or in your spare time. Don't do it in production code unless you can truly justify it. Every public facing site that I write works reliably in IE8 without JS. From that base line the experience only gets better until it's every bit as good as the site that abandons IE or no-script agents. Now, guess whose site is search engine friendly from the outset; guess whose is more user friendly because it more closely aligns to expected browser behaviour; guess whose has a lower load time because the server can deliver a pre-rendered HTML page to the browser; guess which one doesn't just die because ad-block was installed?

dictum 13y ago

> JavaScript polyfills to support new baseline HTML/CSS features are a necessity for sustainable future-and-past-proof development in the modern Web ecosystem I'd wager that most people who disable Javascript are using a modern browser with a good blocklist/whitelist system, e.g. Firefox with NoScript. For instance, if your website needs Flexbox, your CSS will work even on Firefox 25 with NoScript. Flexbox won't work on IE8 with JS off, but that's honestly OK. Progressive enhancement will still allow the visitor to read the content and interact with the page, the only issue is that the elements won't be positioned as intended by the designer. If you're willing to invest more time to support even IE8 with JS off, you could use Sass to more or less replicate Flexbox with floats etc. Usually, until a CSS/HTML feature is supported by at least two major browsers, it's not a good idea to use it in production.