Not to mention, more accessible.
this post was submitted on 05 May 2025
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Programming
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Note there's a group of users that larger than the group of users without JS (for whatever reason): users of assistive technology. And they don't even have a choice.
While I'm all for considering the needs of every user... If you get to the point where you're worrying about no-JS users, I hope you've already considered the needs of people with disabilities, whether temporary or permanent.
Doesn't avoiding JS typically structure a website in such a way that the browsers built-in assistive services can cover it easier?
People should not be prioritizing no-JS users. No one turns off JavaScript.
If you keep the JS to a minmum, you have
- less work maintining that shit, HTML/CSS is patient
- better user experience
So much forms and textboxes don't save content anymore after a reload, because it's dynamically loaded from somewhere or even a frame handled entirely by JS. Buttons/Checkboxes that don't work, it's sad.
Can confirm I’m one of those people with JS off and a pretty strict whitelist !
A lot of people who shared this sentiment were hung up on the idea that “no one turns off JS.” But some people do, for a variety of good reasons!
What % are we talking about? 50%, 25%, 10%, 1%, 0.1%? People make choices, but those are their choices. I need to get the job done and I can't cater to everyone's needs.
And who has to maintain it, not you?
Sadly, the rise of frameworks and SAAS have really killed security and accessibility through enforcement of JS.
'Back in the day' performance, download size, backwards compatibility, and non-js functionality was expected. Now it's not even on the radar for most big corps/agencies. Many places I've worked don't even care about responsiveness, which is crazy.
Now, there are so many 25mb websites that are unusable without JS or the right device...
The point is: a lot of people browsing your site will at least temporarily have a no-JS experience without intentionally doing so.
💯
JavaScript sucks. I hate using it I hate coding it.
I whitelist js sources on my personal computer.
Only absolutely necessary for function scripts get loaded.
If they ask me to disable the adblocker I blacklist the domain.
I've done more than 18 years of dev work. I only hate js. All the other parts of the job are fine. Other languages are fine as well. I've had to learn so many. Hell I know cobol right along side ruby.
Js sucks. It sucks to debug. Its frameworks still have issues with basic stuff like many to many relationships.
All the solutions that don't use or use it sparingly work for years. The ones that rely on the language usually die a firey death by npm/yarn or get deprecated within 6 months.
Js frameworks make php frameworks seems stable efficient and logical by comparison.
Yikes.
Modern day php and laravel is actually not terrible.
But yeah I agree with you.
Javascript is like Dungeons and dragons. It's a mess, weighed down by legacy decisions, too heavy in some places and too light in others, and used in far more places than it should be. It also has some diehard fans, and some diehard fans who have never used anything else.