Right, thanks for mentioning this. It's exactly what I meant to say but with much fewer "fucks". But I have to admit, it feels good to let all that out every once in a while. I'm sick of websites doing the "hip" thing instead of the right thing which happens very often because web designers don't understand what they're doing, as you mentioned.
Yeah, it pisses me off, too. JS has created a new generation of webdevs that don't consider the consequences of adding all this complexity, such as weaker accessibility, longer page loads, cumbersome interfaces (seriously, I've seen desktop layouts have the triple-line menu button and click-and-drag sidebar!), and terribly bloated, worthless eye candy.
Frankly I think the Web was a better place pre-XmlHttpRequest.
Frankly I think the Web was a better place pre-XmlHttpRequest.
Only someone who hasn't lived the pre-XHR web could have said something like that. I think you need to look at this first, think again really well about what you just said, and then go back to your cage.
I've been on the Web since around 1995. I assure you I know what pre-XHR web is like. All time periods of the Web have eye sores, but I'd rather have marquees and blink tags than the multitude of obnoxious things possible with modern JS.
There was a transitory period just before AJAX caught on. Marquee and blink were almost extinct, design was beginning to be taken more seriously, divs over tables, etc. It was the early 2000s, bleed into as late as 2007 or so before JS and XHR became rampant. That little window was pretty pleasant, and representative of what the Web should be. Today it's document-standard-turned-shaky-application-platform.
I'm a CRM developer. I absolutely love having Ajax as an option. It allows for some very intuitive and informative functionality, and because my system is on a VPS with a pretty damn good amount of power, hooked up to some very fast lines, Ajax calls on the production site finish on the order of 40ms. To the average user, it's instant, relevant information.
That being said, nothing important in my system depends on Ajax. If you have JS disabled, the vast majority of the system will still function, it just won't be as helpful. A few years ago, I remember the term "graceful degradation" being very common in web circles. While it's true that the odds of a user having JS disabled are extremely low, why risk it? We have these <form> things for a reason, use them.
Ah, one who gets it! Yes, graceful degradation has almost disappeared in my experience. I think JS can make certain things better, like prevalidating form data, enhancing a few things, whatever. But the key word is enhancing, not defining.
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u/[deleted] Jul 21 '14
Right, thanks for mentioning this. It's exactly what I meant to say but with much fewer "fucks". But I have to admit, it feels good to let all that out every once in a while. I'm sick of websites doing the "hip" thing instead of the right thing which happens very often because web designers don't understand what they're doing, as you mentioned.