[JohnFen]

Whatever happened to the notion that web pages should fail gracefully? That is, they should be able to function in the absence of JS and cookies. Perhaps not fully functional or as pretty, but they should work.

I've long considered websites that fail to do this to be poorly engineered.

[notapenny]

I suppose that notion went away _because_ of JS and cookies.

Looking at it from a business perspective, it's also a matter of cost. How big a percentage of people have JS off (I searched a bit and everything suggests low single digits, 1-2%), versus how much time do I spend making sure the site is somewhat functional to serve these people. And does somewhat functional make sense? Can they see my site but they can't go into my sales funnel without me making HTML-equivalent pages? In that case why would I bother unless that percentage of users grows to where it becomes financially interesting to me?

Still, would be nice if most sites would at least render some plain HTML fallback with a bit of info, instead of a single line on a white page saying "this doesn't work".

[JohnFen]

> I suppose that notion went away _because_ of JS and cookies.

I don't understand what you mean here.

> Looking at it from a business perspective

Which, I suppose, is the underlying problem. In my opinion, the drive to turn websites into revenue generators has had a corrosive effect on the entire web. I suppose that I just have to accept that increasing portions of the web are going to be hostile and to be avoided. It just saddens me, as so much -- perhaps a majority -- of the web is already more of a security risk than I can bear.

> Still, would be nice if most sites would at least render some plain HTML fallback with a bit of info, instead of a single line on a white page saying "this doesn't work".

More info is better than less info, but either way, the page still won't work.

[baash05]

> the drive to turn websites into revenue generators has had a corrosive effect

While I agree, there is the other side of that. They are very very expensive. Even a simple site needs servers, and devs.

> More info is better.

For who? If I tell the 2% of people out there that I sell these awesome things and they attempt to purchase them, but they can't because they have JS off, who did that knowledge help?

Now if it cost me 10k to tell the 2% they're waisting their time here, I'm out 10k and they're no better off than when they got a blank page.

[News-Dog]

Brave Business that will throw-away X-percentage of prime prospects for potential sales.

[baash05]

2% that costs them 3% to earn is -1% profit.

[sofixa]

It went away when not having JS enabled stop being a regular thing ( what, 2010? At the latest!). Before that there were users with very old browsers, or asinine corporate "security" policies that didn't have JS; nowadays it's only luddites longing for HTML-only websites ( we must have lived in different times because those were just terrible to read, especially if you had a nonstandard (for the developer) screen size), aka a negligible amount of internet users. It's a pretty safe bet to not even test what happens when JS is enabled.

[kkfx]

I politely disagree: today usage of js should be considered criminal not only because of privacy but because of IT {e,in}volution at a whole. In the past all desktop OSes are document-based and work in peer to peer networks (starting from Xerox workstations) since them we only have made crap to copycat those historical systems in buggy, limited and limiting ways just to avoid leaving end users any control of the system they use.

Such move is harmful for the society and must end before it's too late. We must came back to classic desktop computing and punishing all evolution that try to lock users. Modern web(cr)apps fall in this very category.

It's very asinine for instance forcing people's on crappy bloated banking portals instead of agree around a common and standard API (like SEPA OpenBank) leaving users using their favorite local app where all transactions are locally stored, digitally signed by the bank so source of truth in user hand, always available, with as many banks as users want under a common user-chosen UI. No need for crappy monsters WebVM, no need for gazillion of resources just to keep pushing around garbage mostly used for surveillance. The same apply to taxes and pretty anything else.

Personally I like reading post with Firefox reader just to avoid being distracted by the crap added to most websites, if a website does not render in Reader or without js I simply avoid it.

[JohnFen]

Which is very poor engineering.

It also walls an increasing amount of the web off from those of us who reject JS because of the security risks it brings.

[baash05]

It walls an increasing amount of the web off from a really small and ever decreasing amount of people.

I'd actually say it's good engineering.

If I engineer a small gas can (for filling my lawn mower) I can build one that holds a gallon, or one that holds 5 gallons. Now 2% of the population that owns lawn mowers have massive yards and riding mowers. So which one do I engineer? Which do I build. I build for the 98%

Optimist says cup is half full

Pessimist says cup is half empty

Engineer says cup is twice the size it has to be.

The reality. Building for the 2% just isn't an effective use of resources.

-- Oh oh.. I got a better one..

-- How many bridges in your home town have allowance for horses. Are all the bridge builders bad engineers?

[IncRnd]

The way software development is generally practiced is not "software engineering" but "MVP development", which has nothing to do with anything but getting a piece of the pie. If a particular user doesn't fall into the biggest slice of that pie, the MVP developers don't care.

[emj]

I've always felt that it's easier to handle older browsers with, if JS is an optional feature. Luddites must be the wrong word here, since it's mostly highly technical people that disable JS and cookies, old farts doesn't work either since there are more young people around me that does it.

[Scarblac]

It was a notion I've heard formulated a few times, but who has ever had a product manager who cared about it?

To me, the browser is an application platform. That it originated as a document viewer is historical trivia.