I just love this huge bluish background with the text "You need to enable JavaScript to run this app.". I guess in 2018 I need scripting even to display some text and images.
If you want to browse with Netscape Navigator 1.0, go for it. But stop feigning surprise that random things don’t work.
"I know JavaScript is assumed to be universal these days but since this is really just text it would be great if it just displayed the raw text as a fallback for when JavaScript wasn't available."
I know it's kind of silly but how we present something can dramatically change the response. But in fairness sometimes a direct and plain explanation for why something is bullshit is the only way to get things noticed or done too.
And the reason why I have JS turned off by default is not some kind of misplaced nostalgia. It is to prevent random shit running in my browser.
Asking for script permission to display text is as bad as asking for microphone permission for an app that does not use audio. Presentation of text has always been possible in HTML without the use of script. You don't need script permission. Don't ask for it. Don't require it.
Just because a lot of people do it doesn't mean we should ever stop complaining about it (bandwagon fallacy). It is wrong. The people who do it are doing it wrong. They may not be aware of it, so someone needs to mention it. Every time.
Whatever else the javascript may do, it is not necessary to transmit text. The text is all I care about. Other people might want additional bells and whistles, but I just want the human-readable text. The web is a consumer's medium. You cannot mandate that anyone experience the content you send them in any particular way. Whatever it is that you send may be blocked, filtered, or modified before ever reaching human eyes. It is therefore polite to provide many options for the manner in which users may experience your content, such as by providing graceful degradation all the way down to someone opening up a raw telnet connection to port 80 and typing in their HTTP request by hand. (Have you ever done that? I have.)
Remote transmission of alphabet characters has been a part of human networking since 1793. If I ask a question using an optical semaphore tower, I don't want your response to be sending a minstrel to me in person, with a bunch of hand puppets and marionettes to act out the answer.
You're welcome to want text on a website but the website creator is welcome to do as they please. I'd point back to my origin example: a vegetarian is fine excluding beef from their diet but no one should have to listen to them blather about it.
The website creator is welcome to do as they please, but there is such as a thing as abusing one's audience.
Your analogy is not apt. The vegetarian is being served beef even though they ordered a vegetarian entree from the waiter. They get the beef whether they want it or not. They can't get the kitchen to give them the meal they want without also giving them beef. The cooks are being intentionally provocative to their vegetarian guests. They are certainly able to do so in their own restaurant, but it is a dick move, and nobody should tolerate it, whether they are vegetarian or not.
No - you accessed the website with a personal expectation that the author adhered to your standards. The web is free, developers and designers can do what they want. If it's not what you want then go somewhere else.
Similarly, the vegetarian ordered "the special" and was befuddled when they received a dish with meat. There was no expectation of a vegetarian dish except by the vegetarian.
V: Can I get a hamburger, but without the beef patty?
C: No.
V: What? Why not?
C: My artistic vision demands that the meat be present.
V: (irritated) Fine. I'll have the hamburger.
C: Here you go.
V: <throws meat patty into the trash>
C: That's not allowed! Wharrgarbl!
In the context of this specific website, the cook is grinding the meat up with the vegetables, in such a way that it is needlessly difficult to throw away the meat. It may not be intentionally hostile to vegetarians, but it does show a careless disregard to anyone that doesn't like their sandwich the only way the cook makes it.
This whole thread is about people who take that right, to not do something, and prattle on about it like the rest of the world cares. The majority of internet viewers have no idea what javascript is. The majority of those who do use it don't care about what it's doing behind the scenes. The few who do care enough to blacklist/whitelist should be happy they can but shouldn't try to make policy to enforce their wishes and dreams when they go against the norm.
That's what you're doing.
Edit: "It may not be intentionally hostile to vegetarians, but it does show a careless disregard to anyone that doesn't like their sandwich the only way the cook makes it."
Yes, this is very true. But it's also tangential to the conversation. The website _could_ be better about offering no javascript support but they certainly don't have to. You don't have to use their website just like you don't have to talk about how it doesn't work without javascript.
They are lazy jerks that are breaking the Internet.
And, in case you haven't noticed, I did go somewhere else. Here. This is somewhere else. A site that provides a forum for commentary on articles from other sites that appeal to one's intellectual curiosity. And here, on this site, I am joining my voice with those that routinely complain when a site uses script to display text, and does not display text if the script does not run.
We have building codes for physical structures that mandate certain minimum requirements for creating buildings fit for human occupation. They ensure that people don't cut corners and hurt people through negligence. They ensure that carelessness in building does not result in arbitrarily denying someone in a wheelchair access to areas that would otherwise be usable. The vast majority of people do not need to know how to build a stairway according to code, but they can all benefit from properly-built stairways.
In the same way, in lieu of actual enforceable codes, the majority of Internet consumers can still benefit from some knowledgeable people that scream their heads off every time someone is caught cutting corners. Malicious scripts exist, and the only safe way to access the web is by allowing scripts only from trustworthy, pre-approved sites. The ignorant majority is gradually coming around to block-by-default, after too many times being burned by trusting site-operators, or their ad networks.
If it annoys you that people complain, you are free to use the built-in "downvote" function of this site, the built-in "hide" function, or to write your own client-side script that removes posts containing objectionable keywords. You are not required to engage with the people who annoy you by complaining about badly-built sites in the same manner that vocal vegetarians annoy me.
Nope, you don't. But don't pass it off as different from vegetarians vocally espousing and touting their vegetarianism. It's the same thing. Which, coincidentally, was the point of my OP.
"Pointing out lack of no-javascript support is tantamount to starting every dinner conversation with 'I'm a vegetarian'."
Most of this conversation was you arguing your points about javascript whereas I was discussing why it's the same as vegetarians. To which you've agreed " in the same manner that vocal vegetarians"
Thus, you have not convinced me that they are the same. I have only admitted that you think they are the same. That's an easy admission, since that's what you've been saying all along.
For a web app, Javascript is fine. To present what is primarily a textual article, it's ludicrous. Just because it's becoming increasingly common doesn't mean stop it being so.
If your site displays nothing without JS, I have to be desperate to see your content to, well, turn on JS to see your content. You as a site owner are asking a whole lot more from me by allowing just anyone on the net to run code on my computer than I am of you.
I don't think I'm a kook, but anytime I have to go into uMatrix more than twice I reconsider reading the article at all. That doesn't apply to this particular article, but it happens more often than I am comfortable with.
What's wrong with browsers is that they allow JavaScript to do anything once it's enabled (like make network requests).
So talk to your browser vendor. Ask them to implement a mode where JavaScript can be run with custom privileges.
This is not true, as Meltdown and Spectre have recently taught us.
A site which can degrade gracefully in the absence of js features is a higher bar than a static, js free site. At the end of the day, disabling js entirely is a custom privilege level of zero.
Spectre and Meltdown have shown that there is no such thing as a true sandbox. You're always safer not running a sandbox as this way you're safe from the next sandbox breaking vulnerability that already exists but has yet to be discovered.
On the Intel platform, perhaps. But that's only because of performance optimizations, so that statement is not universally true.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectre_(security_vulnerabilit...