[Sigia-l] "Who Really Turns Off JavaScript?"

[Timothy Karsjens]

"One clear one is access to JavaScript, without which HTML applications of even modest complexity cannot be effectively served on the web, period"

Immediately, I chose to think of this as being wrong.  However, upon further thought, I wholeheartedly agree.

A straight HTML application would not get very far at all without JavaScript.  

However, how many of us are building straight HTML applications anymore?

I ask this, because I have not since about 1999.  Everything that I have done has possessed heavy reliance on the application server.  Also, nearly every project that i have worked on in the last 7 years has been "No JavaScript".  Does this mean that I have built non-complex applications?  Not at all...

In fact, some of the projects I have completed successfully, have been some of the most complex in the respective industries.  A travel application of recent note, for example, had over 5000 JSP modules for the functionality alone, with a handful for the interface framework.  This entire application did not use Javascript *at all*, but it was very, very complex.

So, on the one hand, yes, straight HTML without JavaScript is pretty much useless outside of displaying pretty pictures...  but straight HTML rendered by an application server (in the form of the server language) can do without it entirely and still be VERY complex and successful and very stable.

To answer the core question; Who really turns off JavaScript..."

Well, major corporations used to turn JavaScript off as a standard across the company.  The ones that come to mind that *used* to turn it off are Target, United Health Group, Coca-Cola, Cargill, and 3M.  With the sophistication of the proxy servers, both visible and invisible, this has become a thing of the past.  The contract I am on now is for a company that has refined their proxy to the point where they can block pretty much anything that can be construed as "dangerous", yet the proxy itself is invisible.  Right now, I can only think of a few places in my area that still forcibly turns off JavaScript.

Make sense?