It’s not about using js or not, it’s about failing gracefully. An empty page instead of a simple written article is not acceptable.
Comment on The sheer amount of websites that are completely unusable without JavaScript
victorz@lemmy.world 1 day ago
People in this thread who aren’t web devs: “web devs are just lazy”
Web devs: Alright buddy boy, you try making a web site these days with the required complexity with only HTML and CSS. 😆 All you’d get is static content and maybe some forms. Any kind of interactivity goes out the door.
Non web devs: “nah bruh this site is considered broken for the mere fact that it uses JavaScript at all”
A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 1 day ago
victorz@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
An empty page isn’t great, I would indeed agree with that.
_stranger_@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
I’ll take an API and a curl call over JavaScript any day of the week.
a_baby_duck@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
If I didn’t input it myself with a punch card I refuse to run it.
_stranger_@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
I unironically use Lynx from my home lab s when I’m ssh’d in snce it’s headless. Sometimes at work I miss the simplicity.
victorz@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
😆
owsei@programming.dev 21 hours ago
That site is literally just static content. Yes JS is needed for interactivity, but there’s none here
victorz@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
If you have static content, then sure, serve up some SSR HTML. But pages with even static content usually have some form of interactivity, like searching (suggestions/auto-complete), etc. 🤷♂️
Limonene@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Search is easier to implement without Javascript than with.
<form method="GET" action="/search"> <input name="q"> <input type=submit> </form>
victorz@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Does that little snippet include suggestions, like I mentioned? Of course it’s easier with less functionality.
mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca 11 hours ago
it sounds like you’re saying there’s an easy solution to get websites that don’t have shit moving on you nonstop with graphics and non-content frames taking up 60% of the available screen
it’s crazy that on a 1440p monitor, I still can’t just see all the content I want on one screen. nope, gotta show like 20% of it and scroll for the rest. and even if you zoom out, it will automatically resize to keep proportion, it won’t show any of the other 80%
I’m not a web dev. but I am a user, and I know the experience sucks.
if I’m looking at the results of a product search and I see five results at a time because of shitty layout, I just don’t buy from that company
victorz@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
I had a bit of trouble following that first paragraph. I don’t understand what it is that you say it sounds like I’m saying.
Either way, none of what you wrote I disagree with. I feel the same. Bad design does not elicit trust.
mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca 10 hours ago
I’m saying your point about static content being all we would get sounds great
puppinstuff@lemmy.ca 19 hours ago
I can do it but it’s hard convincing clients to double their budget for customers with accessible needs they’re not equipped to support in other channels.
That being said, my personal sites and projects all do it. And I’m thankful for accessible website laws where I’m from that make it mandatory for companies over a certain size to include accessible supports that need to work when JS is disabled.
victorz@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
What country or area would that be?
And what do you mean by “do it”? What is it exactly that you do or make without JavaScript?
puppinstuff@lemmy.ca 12 hours ago
Some provinces in Canada have rules that businesses’ websites must meet or exceed the WCAG 2.0 accessibility guidelines, which includes screen reader support that ensures all content must be available to a browser that doesn’t have JavaScript enabled.
neclimdul@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Also the EU and technically a lot of US sites that provide services to or for the government have similar requirements. The latter is largely unenforced though unless you’re interacting with states that also have accessibility laws.
And honestly a ton of sites that should be covered by these requirements just don’t care or get rubber stamped as compliant. Because unless someone actually complains they don’t have a reason to care.
I kind of thought the EU requirements that have some actual penalties would change this indifference but other than some busy accessibility groups helping people that already care, I haven’t heard a lot about enforcement that would suggest it’s actually changed.
victorz@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
That’s excellent.
And what do you make that doesn’t include JavaScript? Like what kind of software/website/content? If you don’t mind sharing, of course.
Frostbeard@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Stop, can only get so erect. Give me that please than the bullshit I have to wade trough today to find information. When is the store open. E-mailadress/phone. Like fuck if I want to engage
victorz@lemmy.world 1 day ago
😆 F—ck, I hear you loud and clear on that one. But that’s a different problem altogether, organizing information.
People suck at that. I don’t think they ever even use their own site or have it tested on anyone before shipping. Sometimes it’s absolutely impossible to find information about something, like even what a product even is or does. So stupid.
Hansae@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
You can say fuck on the internet
victorz@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I also have the right to self-censor myself for effect. 👍👍
MotoAsh@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Ehhhhh itvkinda’ depends. Most things that are merely changing how something already present onvthe page is displayed? Probably don’t need JS. Doing something cool based on the submit or response of a form being submitted? Probably don’t need JS. Changing something dynamically based off of what the user is doing? Might not need JS!
Need to do some computation off of the response of said form and change a bunch of the page? You probably need JS. Need to support older browsers simply doing all of the previously described things? Probably need JS.
It really, really depends on what needs to happen and why.
Witchfire@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Virtually any form validation besides the basics HTML provides is enough to require JS, and input validation (paired with server-side validation ofc) saves both user frustration and bandwidth
victorz@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
Of course it depends, like all things. But in my mind, there’s a few select, very specific types of pages that wouldn’t require at least a bit of JavaScript these days. Very static, non-changing, non-interactive. Even email could work/has worked with HTML only. But the experience is severely limited and reduced, of course.
Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
I would argue that a lot it scripting can and should be done server side.
Cerothen@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
That would make the website feel ultra slow since a full page load would be needed every time. Something as simple as a slide out menu needs JavaScript and couldn’t really be done server side.
Limonene@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
a slide out menu needs JavaScript
A slide out menu can be done in pure CSS and HTML. Imho, it would look bad regardless.
When if you said just send the parts of the page that changed, that dynamic content loading would still be JavaScript
OP is trying to access a restaurant website that has no interactivity. It has a bunch of static information, a few download links for menu PDFs, a link to a different domain to place an order online, and an iframe for making a table reservation.
The web dev using javascript on that page is lazy, yet also creating way more work for themself.
expr@programming.dev 1 day ago
htmx.org solves the problem of full page loads. Yes, it’s a JavaScript library, but it’s a tiny JS library (14k over the wire) that is easily cached. And in most cases, it’s the only JavaScript you need. The vast majority of content can be rendered server side.
Cerothen@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
While fair, now you have to have JavaScript enabled in the page which I think was the point. It was never able having only a little bit. It was that you had to have it enabled
XM34@feddit.org 1 day ago
So, your site still doesn’t work without JS but you get to not use all the convenience React brings to the table? Boy, what a deal! Maybe you should go talk to Trump about those tariffs. You seem to be at least as capable as Flintenuschi!
unwarlikeExtortion@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
JS is just a janky hotfix.
As it was, HTML was all sites had. When these were called “ugly”, CSS was invented for style and presentation stuff. When the need for advanced interactivity (not doable or too slow on Internet speeds of 20-30 years ago), someone just said “fuck it, do whatever you want” and added scripting to browsers.
The real solution came in the form of HTML5. You no longer needed, and I can’t stress this enough, fucking Flash to play a video in-browser. Other things as well.
Well, HTML5 is over 15 years old by now. And maybe the time has come to bring in new functionality into either HTML, CSS or a new, third component of web sites (maybe even JS itself?)
Stuff like menus. There’s no need for then to be limited by the half-assed workaround known as CSS pseudoclasses or for every website to have its own implementation.
Stuff like basic crat stuff. HTML has had forms since forever. Letting it do some more, like counting down, accessing its equivalent of the Date and Math classes, and tallying up a shopping cart on a webshop seems like a better fix than a bunch of frameworks.
Just make a standardized “framework” built directly into the browser - it’d speed up and lower development complexity, reduce bloat and increase performance. And that’s just the stuff off the top of my head.
Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
Something as simple as a slide out menu needs JavaScript and couldn’t really be done server side.
I’m not trying to tell anyone how to design their webpages. I’m also a bit old fashioned. But I stopped making animated gimmicks many years ago. When someone is viewing such things on a small screen, in landscape mode, it’s going to be a shit user experience at best. That’s just my 2 cents from personal experience.
I’m sure there are examples of where js is necessary. It certainly has it’s place. I just feel like it’s over used. Now if you’re at the mercy of someone else that demands x y and z, then I guess you gotta do what you gotta do.
victorz@lemmy.world 1 day ago
If you want to zoom into a graph plot, you want each wheel scroll tick to be sent to the server to generate a new image and a full page reload?
How would you even detect the mouse wheel scroll?
All interactivity goes out the door.
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
“nah bruh this site is considered broken for the mere fact that it uses JavaScript at all”
A little paraphrased, but that’s the gist.
Isn’t there an article just today that talks about CSS doing most of the heavy-lifting java is usually crutched to do?
I did webdev before the framework blight. It was manual php, it was ASP, it was soul-crushing. That’s the basis for my claim that javascript lamers are just lazy, and supply-chain splots waiting to manifest.
victorz@lemmy.world 1 day ago
CSS doing most of the heavy-lifting java is usually crutched to do
JavaScript you mean? Some small subset of things that JavaScript was forced to handle before can be done in CSS, yes, but that only goes for styling and layout, not interactivity, obviously.
I did webdev before the framework blight. That’s the basis for my claim that javascript lamers are just lazy
There is some extremely heavy prejudice and unnecessary hate going on here, which is woefully misdirected. Well get to that. But the amount of time that has passed since you did web dev might put at a disadvantage to make claims about web development these days. 👍
Anyway. Us JavaScript/TypeScript “lamers” are doing the best with what we’ve got. The web platform is very broken and fragmented because of its history. It’s not something regular web devs can do much about. We use the framework or library that suits us best for the task at hand and the resources we are given (time, basically). It’s not like any project will be your dream unicorn project where you get to decide the infrastructure from the start or get to invent a new library or a new browser to target that does things differently and doesn’t have to be backwards compatible with the web at large. Things don’t work this way.
Don’t you think we sigh all day because we have to monkey patch the web to make our sites behave in the way the acceptance criteria demand? You call that lazy, but we are working our knuckles to the bone to make things work reasonably well for as many people as we can, including accessibility for those with reduced function. It’s not an easy task.
… “Lazy.” I scoffed in offense, to be honest with you.
It’s like telling someone who made bread from scratch they’re lazy for not growing their own wheat, ffs.
Let’s see you do better. 👍👍👍👍👍👍
BackgrndNoize@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
A lot of this interactivity is complete bullshit, especially on sites that are mostly just for static data like news articles, the JS is there for advertisement and analytics and social media and other bullshit
humorlessrepost@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
News site dev here. I’ll never build a site for this company that relies on JavaScript for anything other than video playback (yay hls patents, and they won’t let me offer mp4 as an alternative because preroll pays my bills, despite everyone expecting news to be free and ad-free)