For sure as of today GitHub is a web app, but it's questionable whether it should forces you to use it as one. In essence, GitHub is just a remote server for a .git folder. This does not need any JS.
I see that GitHub now tries to become at the same time a social media for hacker-friendly people and some sort of super-CI server with automation. For sure these are good features. However I also see why people are sad that the old (and defining) functionalities stopped working without JS.(look at commit, browse the sources, read and submit issues / PR and code review). It saddens me a bit to often see working websites getting more and more complex, adding more and more features, probably to remain "fancy" and competitive.
While I can understand the annoyance at the change, if your perspective is that GitHub is just a server for a .git directory then why even bother with accessing it via a web browser in the first place. The git cli seems like it should be both more than sufficient in that case and preferable since it’s much less resource intensive and designed for the purpose.
For sure there is a discussion to be had about whether the addons that GitHub provides over and above being a server for a .git directory need JavaScript, but that feels like a different discussion than “it’s just a server for .git directories”
When working in a team, having a lightweight shared git remote for sources is super handy. For instance Gerrit, or what uses Google (Critique I think it’s called). For sure these services have a little bit of JS for things such as code reviews, but they’re useable without any.
I see that GitHub now tries to become at the same time a social media for hacker-friendly people and some sort of super-CI server with automation. For sure these are good features. However I also see why people are sad that the old (and defining) functionalities stopped working without JS.(look at commit, browse the sources, read and submit issues / PR and code review). It saddens me a bit to often see working websites getting more and more complex, adding more and more features, probably to remain "fancy" and competitive.