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Comment by jimktrains2 | Hacker News Reader

An yet another simple text blog that is 100%, completely, utterly broken an useless without JavaScript enable. There isn't even any compelling feature. Besides the sliding out mention there is _no_ reason JavaScript even needs to be on this page.

I don't get why BlogSpot an so many other sites require javascript to o absolutely nothing of value just to see the site. It's maddening and appalling.

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It's maddening and appalling to you because you deliberately disabled an essential part of the web platform on your browser. Your problem, not theirs.

What about the blind who use screen readers or braille displays? Why should the page become so bloated that I can't read simple text simply?

I don't have first-hand experience, but my impression is that modern screen readers shouldn't have too much trouble with simple JavaScript like this.

Could anybody with experience confirm/deny?

According to a recent podcast I listened to[1] about a blind Software user, it seemed like there is a lot of issues with the current generation of Screen Readers. This includes issues with JS.

1.http://hanselminutes.com/413/im-a-blind-software-technician-...

This is not an endorsement (or not) for blogs that rely on JS, but apparently 98.6% of screenreader users have javascript enabled.[0]

[0] http://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey4/

Doesn't mean that it's makes for a pleasant or useful experience. Viz http://hanselminutes.com/413/im-a-blind-software-technician-... from a sibling comment of yours.

Also, I'm surprised I got downvoted for saying that we should be considering the disabled when making decisions on how to structure a blog. I know accessibility isn't _cool_ but it's the right thing to do, especially for a text-based site, like a blog.

(PS: mendelk, I'm not accusing you of downvoting me)

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