But... why Javascript hurts you that much? What did it do to you?
Yesterday, I was on digitalmars.com, browsing the archive for the D
newsgroup. Actually, I just had it open in a tab, and was actively
browsing another website. I wondered why the browser had such a bad
response. Finally, I figured out, that the cause was some JavaScript
code included from Amazon. It showed some applet on the bottom of the
archive page, and it didn't even work. All it did was displaying some
loading gif animation and eating CPU. When I blocked Amazon, all was
fast and responsive again.
Another example is Candydoc. That tree on the left is awful JavaScript
hackery. It only works if JS is enabled, and even then it is slow,
annoying to use, and all that. Candydoc advertises itself as "Produced
result is AJAX web-application that is compatible with all mainstream
web browsers." Without AJAX, the authot of Candydoc would have done a
much better job. Now isn't that typical?
(By the way, AJAX for offline browsable documentation? What?)
And sorry, I can't stop my rant. Did you ever see those polls, which are
mostly added on the left or right border of a webpage? Lately, I only
see AJAX-style ones, and you can use them only with JavaScript enabled.
When you vote, they show an animation, which alpha blends from one
display state into another. Wheee, great. In the old days, you had to
wait for the slow GUI to respond. Today, you wait for the GUI animation
to finish. Both introduce a small but annoying delay.
And not to forgot, when some dirty piece of AJAX JavaScript code runs
wild. Then it will send HTTP requests in a loop, even though the page
finished loading. Good that we have Noscript to trash the AJAX
programmer's worthless effort.
Sometimes I love new technology.
