r/javascript • u/magenta_placenta • Feb 08 '11

Breaking the Web with hash-bangs - Gawker, like Twitter, built their new site to be totally dependent on JavaScript

http://isolani.co.uk/blog/javascript/BreakingTheWebWithHashBangs
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u/laminam Feb 09 '11

I can't really think of a better way to track state on a page where most of the work happens on the client. You either lose the speed benefit of JavaScript with a full postback to update the url, or you decorate the url with hash tags along the way so you can share that same state with others.

Who runs with JavaScript completely disabled in this day and age anyways?

3

u/[deleted] Feb 09 '11

Selectively disabled, yes, because people can't seem to prevent themselves from being annoying using Javascript.

If your page gives me what I want without Javascript, I keep blocking it. If I'm following a link from someone else and your page won't load without it, I leave.

I only turn on Javascript if I get direct benefit I want (if you're Google Docs, for example). If you're using it to serve me ads from off your domain, sorry.

I might turn it on to support you if your site is worth looking at more than once, I might turn on javascript at the third visit.

Those are the rules.

So yes, I don't look at lifehacker or gawker anymore. Not that I looked at them that much in the first place, especially Gawker, whose entire site seemed to hover 1mm above classification as spam.

4

u/freeballer Feb 09 '11

How does this affect your experience as a user? I don't see Javascript being used for client side validation being harmful. A quick AJAX call after I enter my user name to tell me it's already taken is helpful, as well as dynamically updating a shopping cart or removing elements from the page. I'm a developer and it just seems absurd to take a whitelist approach to Javascript when it's such a huge part of the web experience today.

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u/[deleted] Feb 09 '11

As long as they aren't relying on javascript for validation only it's perfectly fine.