> how annoying websites are which use Javascript for things which could be done without
A good example of sites which use JavaScript for things they don’t really need are those GP mentions: ‘government sites, e-stores, banking.’
Government sites: the vast majority of government sites are simply informative text. There’s absolutely no need for me to grant the government permission execute code on my computer (which is what JavaScript does) in order to read the minutes of the latest council meeting. Even when interactivity is needed (e.g. an online tax-payment system), HTML forms (the sort we’ve had for over two decades) are a perfectly good solution for ‘enter information in a box and submit it.’ JavaScript can definitely lead to more attractive, more usable solutions — but it’s completely optional. Government sites are a great example of something which should work for anyone, even someone using an old BeOS box on the other end of a modem connexion running over a bit of wet string.
E-stores: there’s simply no need for JavaScript to display pictures & descriptive text of goods in an attractive fashion. There’s simply no need for JavaScript to give me a form to enter my credit card information & mailing address. Again, JavaScript can make the experience better, but it is also a privacy and security risk. I seem to recall that Amazon made quite a lot of money before JavaScript was a thing; I imagine it could continue to do so.
Banking: there’s no need for my bank to execute code on my computer to send me a statement of my accounts, nor to give me a form to pay bills or send money. Indeed, in my experience JavaScript just makes things worse, because instead of downloading a single HTML document from my bank’s servers I get to download dozens of trackers and bugs, as well as the code necessary to hit multiple APIs and stitch the page together out of its parts on my own desktop.
I think I read something yesterday, here or elsewhere, about how client-side JavaScript really took off at the same time as server-side Ruby was a big thing, with the implication that the reason was that Ruby was so slow that websites had to offload as much computation as possible. I don’t know, now, if that was actually the case, but I do know that it’s 2018 and my desktop experience is slower than it was in 1998, thanks to JavaScript.
A good example of sites which use JavaScript for things they don’t really need are those GP mentions: ‘government sites, e-stores, banking.’
Government sites: the vast majority of government sites are simply informative text. There’s absolutely no need for me to grant the government permission execute code on my computer (which is what JavaScript does) in order to read the minutes of the latest council meeting. Even when interactivity is needed (e.g. an online tax-payment system), HTML forms (the sort we’ve had for over two decades) are a perfectly good solution for ‘enter information in a box and submit it.’ JavaScript can definitely lead to more attractive, more usable solutions — but it’s completely optional. Government sites are a great example of something which should work for anyone, even someone using an old BeOS box on the other end of a modem connexion running over a bit of wet string.
E-stores: there’s simply no need for JavaScript to display pictures & descriptive text of goods in an attractive fashion. There’s simply no need for JavaScript to give me a form to enter my credit card information & mailing address. Again, JavaScript can make the experience better, but it is also a privacy and security risk. I seem to recall that Amazon made quite a lot of money before JavaScript was a thing; I imagine it could continue to do so.
Banking: there’s no need for my bank to execute code on my computer to send me a statement of my accounts, nor to give me a form to pay bills or send money. Indeed, in my experience JavaScript just makes things worse, because instead of downloading a single HTML document from my bank’s servers I get to download dozens of trackers and bugs, as well as the code necessary to hit multiple APIs and stitch the page together out of its parts on my own desktop.
I think I read something yesterday, here or elsewhere, about how client-side JavaScript really took off at the same time as server-side Ruby was a big thing, with the implication that the reason was that Ruby was so slow that websites had to offload as much computation as possible. I don’t know, now, if that was actually the case, but I do know that it’s 2018 and my desktop experience is slower than it was in 1998, thanks to JavaScript.