JavaScript considered harmful (was Re: New online index to Beazley's tutorials)

[Alex Martelli]

"Mats Wichmann" <mats at laplaza.org> wrote in message
news:3c3b0bae.3417293 at news.laplaza.org...
    ...
> Just to keep the rant quotient high...
>
> My own personal beef with cookies has devolved to when people
> /require/ them, with no alternative.  If you must use cookies, offer
> me a choice: either accept cookies, or accept reduced functionality or
> convenience.  Fine.

I have absolutely no (zero) beef with this "rant", and in fact I
would subscribe to it 100%.  It's possible (not even too hard) to
offer reduced-convenience use to cookieless visitors, and, as your
mention of "public terminals" reminds us, being cookieless is not
even necessarily a matter of choice.  Any site which "absolutely
requires" cookies, javascript, Java, frames, or even (say) COLOR
(since there ARE colorblind people, and a small but non-zero number
of color-less web-access devices), where it could offer reduced but
non-null service in the absence of such technologies, is not serving
its users optimally.


Alex