I would really like to have a web of static files with hyperlinks. We could keep it separate from the web of AJAX and touch events and scroll-hijacking. They don't even feel like the same thing anyway.
Why would you want that instead of AJAX-y functionality? Page reloads increases wait times, and depending on use case, drastically increases page size.
>Page reloads increases wait times, and depending on use case, drastically increases page size.
Considering the sizes of the javascript libraries loaded by all of the websites, I find it unlikely that the page size for a static page will be larger.
The average size of a single page is larger than a doom install now. That's not because of orders of magnitude more of HTML. It's because of the 15 different tracking JS libs, analytics libs, effects libs, etc that are piled into every site.
Full page reloads were a big deal when most people were on dial-up connections.
With proper caching and today's connectivity it's far less of an issue.
AJAX-y still is nicer and definitely has its place but at least speaking for myself if I'm reading a blog or a news site I'd prefer a fast static page rather than a lot of gratuitious ajax animations and transitions.
The big difficulty these days is mobile. When I'm traveling, I can download a simple HTML page pretty quickly, but every request is a crapshoot. If I need more than a few small requests to use your site, I'm likely not getting it depending on where I am.
News articles should absolutely be almost JS-free. The current status of news sites is ridiculous. But this page is an interactive visualization, so it makes sense to use JS. The JS debate isn't an all-or-nothing argument. Documents should be documents. Apps should be apps. Interactions that are more complicated than simple documents require some JS.
But documents like these aren't commonplace[0]. JS isn't used to enhance documents, it's used to make them much worse - because that degrading of quality and experience is how websites make money.
Apps are obviously a different beast. Most of websites don't need to be or behave like apps though.
[0] - which is a very sad thing; it's exactly the kind of advantage computers have over paper, and it's not being used at all. You either get dumb text that's even less functional than a book (think of articles rendered to image), or wasteful apps with shit-ton of ads and tracking.
And what about the 99% of people who don't have a problem with the 99% of the web you feel is shit? Why should the web be limited to only what you feel is worth your time?
Do we know that 99% of people don't have a problem with 99% of the web? Or do they not know how to express their displeasure with it or whom to express it to? I hear complaints all the time from normal users about top sites. They don't sound happy to me at all, they just sound like they're frustrated and don't think anyone is listening.
Also, most people have no clue about how websites work, and so they can't really imagine how they could look like. Moreover, most people accept whatever market throws at them, because they don't have any other choice anyway.
That's what gopher is for. The WWW has javascript as a requirement, and I think it's time to stop holding onto any misconceptions otherwise.
Apparently this is an unpopular notion. There's an entire protocol that's based on links between plain content - use it! The non-javascript users on the WWW are such a tiny minority that nobody who pays developers is going to bother with the time. The average user wants the extra functionality that even basic JS can provide - demanding that the web be supported without it is akin to demanding support for IE4 on Mac Classic.
That is the reality, folks. You don't have to like it, but you should accept it.
The average web user is ignorant of the possibilities. If they knew how much faster and stable their web-using experience would be without the excessive, unnecessary JS on many sites, they would gladly vote for "no JS" as a default.
The content of most sites created today could reasonably been hosted on sites when IE4 for Mac Classic was current, text, pictures, form fields & buttons. You don't have to prove it but you should build such a site today using methods that would likely mean someone using IE4 for Mac Classic would have some access to the content, albeit not an optimal experience.
And uglier, and limited. While the people here might not have any problem with the entire web looking like Ward Cunningham's wiki, I doubt the public at large feels the same...
This is not an attractive website. This site is objectively fucking awful because of the cruft. (Most of the time pages don't load for me. See this as one example: http://imgur.com/4WgHhVh )
Ensuring that the lowest-end gets some experience doesn't mean modern devices and browsers must have an uglier or limited experience. Progressive enhancement, it's a thing.
The last time I checked, the "average user" can't even use the web without getting their computer infected with malware served by ad networks. They may want functionality, but as far as I'm concerned they aren't aware of the price they are paying for it.
Honestly, most people don't want shit. They accept what they're given. It's not like anyone is even honestly asking them what they want.
(And if they complain that things are worse than they were, they often misattribute them anyway. My mother blames a lot of things on her computer being too slow, even though half of them aren't really the fault of the computer, but of the lazy-ass companies putting increasingly bloated shit on-line.)
i hold gopher in high regard. For most personal projects, gopher would make everything so much easier. Add a bit of convenience stuff, like basic text and image flow without having to do any css . navigation solves itself with gopher. wham, the perfect personal web page.