OT: Scripting on websites [Was: Re: QtD 0.1 is out!]

[Daniel Keep]

Ary Borenszweig wrote:
> lol :)
> 
> Yeah, well, for a directory listing they could have shown the full tree,
> but if it's too big then it's ugly, and browsing folder by folder (like
> dsource) is slow for me.

The point is that instead of giving you a sub-optimal but functional
alternative, they give you none.

It's like not putting in wheelchair access ramps on the argument that
they're inconvenient due to being a longer path than the stairs.

> You are right in that replacing href="" with onclick="" just for a link
> is stupid.

Not just stupid; there's a whole circle of hell devoted to people who do
that.  They sit in endless thirst with water coolers everywhere.  The
catch is the taps have been replaced with "low-resistance" jobbies that
require a special spanner to turn.

Such spanners were never built.

> But... why Javascript hurts you that much? What did it do to you?

Leaving aside Javascript the language and talking about JS as used in
browsers, it's not the language itself.  It's how it's used.  It's the
constant needless use of it that breaks the user experience.  I think I
enumerated all the big ones previously.

Let's say you're moving house, and ask someone to help.  They come over,
and are really helpful.  But every five minutes, they bitch-slap you and
kick you between the legs.  Then go back to being helpful.

Eventually, you're going to throw them out no matter HOW helpful they
is.  Bad web developers have abused JS so much, so often and for so
long, that I've decided it's less stressful to run with JS disabled.

Don't even get me started on sites based entirely on Flash...

  -- Daniel