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by XLcommerce 5180 days ago
That's an important question to answer. Creating a site that works sans js then layering on js is great, but it does entail duplication of effort, a larger testing burden etc. It's important to work out if the ROI for going the extra mile makes good business sense. Especially given the (excellent) point the original post makes: if a user has turned off js then if your app is worth their time they'll find the js switch again without difficulties.
2 comments

Not saying that it isn't an important question but if the site doesn't work without js the user will most certainly not enable it just to decide whether the app/site is worth their time.

The instant the site fails the decision has been made.

If your site breaks without js you must at least realize that you will, at the very least, annoy the users who has actively disabled it.

People who look for trouble are apt to find it.

Next, you would have to build a cookieless site, avoid Flash and other annoying videos, fly blind without tracking etc.

/NoScript user /I am the 1 percent

> avoid Flash and other annoying videos

I can't think of a single reason why that would be a bad thing.

You say that like its a bad thing! Actually sounds pretty good to me :-) seriously, when building a trite, shouldn't that be th first thing you do, then layer that stuff on top? Sounds like it would actually be easier to test!
Are we talking about applications, or webpages? Of course an application written in javascript won't work without, that is a given. That's not the problem though, its static webpages (or what could be). If I get to a website with visible content (mainly text, or images), but isn't fully functional without javascript, I probably won't enable it. If I see one where I can't see content, I'll probably enable javascript there as well, but it depends if I want to read it.

Good examples of some problems I've seen are Twitter taking several seconds to load content, even when the javascript is cached (somehow facebook does it fast enough). You even have a webpage like this "http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/internals/howbrowsers...? that seems laggy when scrolling with js.