<noscript>
<center>
<b>notice</b>
<p>javascript required to view this site</p>
<b>why</b>
<p>measured improvement in server performance</p>
<p>awesome incremental search</p>
</center>
</noscript>
Indeed, that was a relatively recent change that I never understood. It had been working without JS for a long time before that. And page loads became slower, not faster, for me.
> And page loads became slower, not faster, for me.
They're not exclusive, smaller server loads doesn't mean the experience is better for the client.
For instance the server might just stop doing server-side template rendering. Instead it sends one static page, then the client requests and render the JSON for the article, or maybe the page only contains the JSON for the article instead of the rendered one.
Then the template rendering cost stops showing up on the server, because it's not performed on the client, and serialising to JSON is almost certainly cheaper than rendering an ad-hoc and half-assed template format.
But now the client has to perform a bunch of extra requests (to fetch the javascript and possibly the json) and it pays the cost for the template rendering, and that might be even halfer-assed, and more expensive, because it's out of sight of the server loads / logs.
The result is that the server has gone from, say, 80ms CPU to 40ms CPU per page (which definitely qualifies as a "measured improvement in server performance"), but the client now needs an additional 300ms to reach loading completion.
You are 100% right. Server was pegged at 100 and the family (me) were complaining about email not working (who runs their own mail server any more). We needed to shed load. Some things went to GitHub pages (https://github.com/WardCunningham/remodeling) and the rest turned into simple content loaded by that. There were some more complexities because of SSL and old OS but it works. Things have evolved since and will continue to evolve but expect the original wiki to remain accessible in some form.
If the wiki is not being updated anymore (or is it?) than why not just host the original one (not the current JS one) as a whole on github pages? Won't this save server costs?
Good description. And the site owner may have decided that trade-off works well for them - they are not incompetent or evil just because a few niche but noisy users have a moan.
At the same time, the users are rightfully complaining, their experience has been made noticeably worse in multiple ways to no benefit. Worse, they essentially get taunted.
> the users are rightfully complaining [because] their experience has been made noticeably worse in multiple ways to no benefit
Depends on your definition of rightfully. This is a ad-free, cost-free website. If they want to reduce server load or prioritize something other than non-JS experience, it’s their prerogative.
Especially when the complaint is “it’s slower on my client” and not “I can no longer access the data without JavaScript”
It just violates the KISS principle too much when the site in question is mostly presenting documents. I can see JS being useful if you have some sort of SPA app. But essentially docs with JS are a total no-go. Why do I need to fire up a 50MB binary to read a simple document again? Ahh, because reasons, I see...
Whether or not something is 'simple' depends on what type of simplicity you're optimizing for and your use case/requirements. Front-end js frameworks could make development much simpler than relying on vanilla code or back-end frameworks to accomplish the same tasks. Personally, I don't see the benefit of defining simplicity by how much work the browser has to do unless there's a specific, tangible requirement that demands it.
Accessibility isn't any more of a problem than it is with HTML. For screen readers, et al it's still something that needs to be deliberately incorporated into the document structure, and modern frameworks are more than capable of handling it. What about older browsers with crappy JS implementations? Front-end frameworks have tools designed to extend support to much older browsers with limited JS support. The percentage of people who have access to a web browser but can't use javascript applications is vanishingly small. When I've worked with people making publicly-funded tools for which accessibility must accommodate people with very limited technical means-- unhoused people, for example-- developers tend to skip the web interface altogether and go with SMS combined with telephone or in-person service. JS is not the barrier.
Obviously that 50MB binary is hyperbole, but the baseline Vue include is 16k. It's certainly easier to make make front-end JS heavy and unreliable than plain static HTML, but it's pretty easy to avoid it, and design that poor would probably fuck up plain-old HTML and CSS just as bad. The fact is that most users do appreciate the dynamic features and responsiveness that is only possible with js. If you don't, and want to exclude yourself from modern web functionality, then be my guest. I think it's pretty strange that you'd expect other people to go out of their way to accommodate your rather uncommon preferences to make an experience most users consider worse and doesn't work towards satisfying any tangible business needs.
I know this discussion is lost and the times have changed. However, two things I cant let stand: Using semantic HTML tags is all you need for proper accessibility of text documents. Calling that out as being specia attention for accessibility is false in my opinion. And yes, you just found one of these very rare people. I still spend 99% of my work day in tmux on a plain text console. I can, of course, fire up Firefox on a second machine I have next to me for just these problems, but it breaks my workflow not being able to read a text document with a text browser. Dont even bother telling me that this use case is no longer supported. I know that. That doesn't change my technical opinion that JS is way too much of a gun for documents.
> Calling that out as being specia attention for accessibility is false in my opinion.
I didn't. I said that accessibility is no more of a problem for js-fueled pages than HTML pages, which was not always true.
> Dont even bother telling me that this use case is no longer supported
Then don't say people are making websites wrong when by common practice you're using the wrong tools to interact with them.
> I know that. That doesn't change my technical opinion that JS is way too much of a gun for documents.
Like I said, feel free to opt out of the modern internet. It's your life. It's just flatly absurd to be in your position and accuse developers of having poor practices when they provide an objectively better experience for probably 9999 out of 10000 other users by using widely accepted, standard, reliable practices that often require less development time.
I am blind. I do rely on accessibility to interact with a computer. Yes, you could accuse me of deliberately avoiding the modern web, but I have my reasons. Primary reason is performance. Even though I feel like you are talking down to me from a pretty high horse, I still don't wish for you to ever experience how sluggish it feels trying to use the "modern web" with a screen reader on something like Windows. Don't even make me start about the hellhole that is Linux GUI accessibility. It was a nice ride once, before GNOME 3 and the elimination of CORBA killed most of the good work done by good people. Fact is, I am too used to a system which reacts promptly when I press a key to be able to switch to a modern browser by default. That would kill all my productivity. Yes, its a trade, but for now, having no JS engine by default is still way better then the alternatives.
I apologize for saying your use case is incorrect-- clearly, someone using a screen reader would have a totally legit if still comparatively uncommon use case. I have used the modern web in screen readers because I've developed modern web pages to be accessible, which by my estimation means doing more than using a WCAG scanner.
I still think it's ridiculous to say that developers are doing something wrong by using modern practices just because it doesn't fit your use case. You can have your opinion all you want to and I can have my opinion about it.
> There’s no reason to think SPAs are in any way objectively better in terms of either UX or DX.
No. Not without knowing the use case, the requirements, the users, and all of that. Sometimes I don't need anything beyond a text editor for something I make. Use the right tool for the job.
> I can’t count the number of SPAs that manage to break basic browser functionality like links, back/forward navigation and scrolling. It’s insane.
Yes. With more powerful tools you can fuck more things up, more thoroughly than with less powerful tools. That's not a problem with tools, that's a problem with bad development and design. Assuming that the person who fucked it up that badly would have made a better experience with less powerful tools is almost certainly wrong.
Well, there is obviously a conflict in UI experience. I can very well see how back/forward breaks the idea of a web "app", because what would backward mean in a classical app, except for maybe undo? I tend to put web addresses in roughly these two categories: those that try to be an app, and those which just present a document. True, inline editing may blur the line, but thats how I try to see it. IOW, I am not mad at someone killing my back/forward buttons if these just dont make any sense in the context of the app they are providing. OTOH, I am pretty pissed if someone steps outside of classic HTML if all they are doing is basically prviding text/images.
Sure, if you’re building Figma, SPA all the way. If it’s a dashboard or a semi-static document, SPAs are misused and that’s when basic functionality gets replaced with JS, but typically in a broken fashion.
Why use a web browser? Or even a web server? Opening up rcp so users could download it and view it locally would be much simpler.
Of course, some people might want additional functionality, and to facilitate that functionality, we have many technological tools at our disposal which make the process of implementing that functionality simpler than not using them. What you deem to be simple enough without being too simple is based on your use case and preferences.
What are the requirements and what do you plan on building into it? Annotations? Persistent highlighting? Foldable sections? In-line bookmarks? Citation generators for quotes? Content editing? Comments? Image carousels? Dynamic reading lists? Searching for other papers using selected text?
I mostly browse sites with JS disabled (with lots of exceptions of course) to get rid of those awful Euro cookie banners. Are those required in US now for some reason? My browser doesn't save the cookie that says they can save cookies, so they constantly prompt me.
