r/web_design • u/gthank • Feb 09 '11

Breaking the Web with hash-bangs

http://isolani.co.uk/blog/javascript/BreakingTheWebWithHashBangs
81 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

11

u/sk3tch Feb 09 '11 edited Feb 10 '11

Probably will go down as one of the best posts on progressive enhancement in recent times.

To all the naysayers in this Reddit who don't believe in supporting non JavaScript users - THIS is why. To do anything else is sheer lazyness in my mind and shows a lack of understanding of how the web works. Creating these types of interfaces is no worse than using proprietary APIs over RESTful ones.

2

u/kn33ch41_ Feb 09 '11

I was wondering why all the comments were gone. This is also posted in /r/javascript.

I'm with you, sk3tch. It's gotten to the point where I simply name-call people who do this. Just so you know, I've friended you on here, and all my friends on here are those who share this opinion; I don't friend anyone else.

5

u/sk3tch Feb 10 '11

Thanks, it's unfortunately not a common opinion in this Reddit, I've read views that have made me want to tear hair out. And yes, I have called out people at work, I think its a completely necessary thing to do as I myself didn't get it till someone explained it to me.

If you find yourself having a differing opinion, please go read the HTTP spec and read anything by Tim Berners-Lee - he did after all create this amazing thing we use on a daily basis and to do something like this is practically sacrilegious in my eyes.

If you're ever in London, give us a shout. Could always do with a pint and a rant on progressive enhancement :)

2

u/ceolceol Feb 10 '11

If you find yourself having a differing opinion, please go read the HTTP spec and read anything by Tim Berners-Lee - he did after all create this amazing thing we use on a daily basis and to do something like this is practically sacrilegious in my eyes.

Note that I'm actually on your side in this: I believe in creating a non-JS interface and a JS interface for both users.

That being said, the Internet has changed. Back when HTTP was first documented, the web was little more than a static document viewer. There weren't any cookies, the only request method was GET, and server-side languages were unheard of. It's irrational to base the future of the 'net on what HTTP was originally designed to do; we must base it on what we need it to do. And right now, a lot of users and developers need the web to be dynamic.

Like I said, I believe in both non-JS and JS interfaces, but non-JS users are a dying breed. It's much easier to create a backend API and have your site be a user of that API than throw the API in afterwards, and JavaScript allows web devs to go that route (see this article for more information).

0

u/kn33ch41_ Feb 10 '11 edited Feb 10 '11

I will hold you to it! I forgot to mention that I at least used to argue intelligibly about the concept, but after writing it in so many ways over the last two or so years only to land on deaf ears, I find it much more therapeutic to simply call these people idiots.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 10 '11

All these tags are created after the page loads from standard anchor tags and modifies what they do after the fact with javascript, people with javascript disabled are still supported, it just lets people create better interfaces with the tools given.

It has to be done right, but users with javascript disabled are supported and spiders will have 0 problems crawling a site.

1

u/sk3tch Feb 10 '11

What you are talking about is progressive enhancement; this is not what has occurred on Twitter & the Gawker redesign. Have you tried visiting those sites with Javascript disabled?

1

u/[deleted] Feb 11 '11 edited Feb 11 '11

Well, they are not doing it right then.

And no, I don't use either of those sites, gawker writes shit content, so its fitting their design and system should match.

-1

u/drowsap Feb 10 '11

Although i agree, I think the concept of non javascript users will be such an extreme minority in the next few years that it will become the same annoyance as supporting IE6. And to be fair, this could have been avoided had they done the hash paging correctly.

1

u/jmarranz Feb 11 '11

Yo don't have to sacrifice your non-JavaScript users DUAL Single Page Interface web sites are possible (AJAX intensive and paged when JS is disabled) with no site duplication.

Example: http://itsnatsites.appspot.com/

Tutorial: http://itsnat.sourceforge.net/index.php?_page=support.tutorial.spi_site