Back in the day it was also about supporting the various lo-fi web browsing devices that were around at the time. WAP on mobile phones, and TV set top boxes (Wa

Back in the day it was also about supporting the various lo-fi web browsing devices that were around at the time. WAP on mobile phones, and TV set top boxes (Was it called WebTV? Those were the days.) Now I agree it's only to support web fundamentalists who disable it completely, and those people surely must be used to having sites not work properly. At the same time, if you require JS for things that don't need it, like basic navigation or dropdown menus, then that's lame for a different set of reasons. In general, the principle of progressive enhancement is still a useful and important one. It's good to know how to make a great website in pure html and css, and then to layer the JS on top, simply because it's an effective technique that results in good code and usable websites.