On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 4:37 PM, Matthew Toseland <t...@amphibian.dyndns.org
> wrote:

>  > Yes, they are *capable* of using a browser with no Javascript, but they
> are
> > not forced to.
>

I'm just going to deal with this point-by-point, because people keep
throwing out arguments and I've yet to see a convincing one:


> Well, that's not the point - they might be accessing their desktop's node
> from a phone.
>

That doesn't necessarily preclude Javascript, and it could preclude a
non-Javascript option (many phones aren't good at rendering websites even if
they don't use Javascript).

Furthermore, are we really going to predicate our entire decision process on
this extremely edge use-case?


>  Or they might be using a headless server
>

How, plugging their nervous system directly into a serial interface?  If
they are using a headless server it is almost certain they'll be using it
from a client that is capable of running a Javascript-capable web browser.


> or using ssh -X (which tends to slow down heavy javascript apps
> enormously).
>

Now you are really dredging the barrel for edge-use cases.  You want to
inconvenience 99.99% of our users so that people who want to tunnel their
connection to Freenet's web interface over ssh -X can have a snappy user
experience?  You are now almost parodying your own argument!


> Or they might be a blind linux user etc.
>

Perhaps I'm missing your point, but doesn't Linux support browsers that
support Javascript, and doesn't GWT have accessibility support?


> However, the real issue is that a lot of privacy aware people, who are an
> important part of existing freenet users and contributors (the vast majority
> judging by responses on FMS) turn off Javascript in their web browsers - to
> enhance their security when browsing *the web*.
>

And wouldn't these super-paranoid users be following our advice to use a
separate browser for Freenet?  If so, its a non-issue.  They can enable
Javascript in the browser they use for Freenet, secure in the knowledge that
we have pretty robust filtering of Javascript from anything downloaded from
Freenet, and the only Javascript they'll be running will therefore be
written by us.

And then they click on the rabbit icon and it launches the same browser with
> privacy mode enabled. If it then tells them that Freenet only works with
> Javascript enabled they will probably be rather annoyed. It's true that
> mixing code and HTML is iffy (although IMHO HTML is supposed to be
> structure, so it's not that iffy), but there are lots of ways to deal with
> that e.g. Bombe's nano-templating engine.
>

If they are as paranoid as you claim they are then this is merely an
inconvenience.  Why are you trying so desperately to avoid inconveniencing a
small minority of our userbase while right now AS WE SPEAK we are probably
losing hundreds of users per day who are put-off by our current UI?

You can't claim that you are motivated by a desire not to inconvenience a
small minority of users when the status quo is that hundreds, perhaps
thousands of users are inconvenienced every day because Freenet's UI sucks.

Ian.

-- 
Ian Clarke
CEO, SenseArray
Email: i...@sensearray.com
Ph: +1 512 422 3588
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