Dynamically Generated Forms and HTML5

http://kellysutton.tumblr.com/post/9129585294/dynamically-generated-forms-and-html5

by kellysutton • 15 years ago

5 4 15 years ago

kellysutton.tumblr.com

xnxn• 15 years ago

This post has good intentions (I'm all for the sharing of professional knowledge!) but contains a lot of red flags, such as sending data to clients that they don't need and can only use incorrectly, inadvertently, or maliciously. The whole thing is topped off with this alarming statement:

> If you’re not using JavaScript, you’re not using the web. Special considerations shouldn’t be made for you.

The practices described in the post may "work", but they are irresponsible and shouldn't be encouraged. As shapers of the web we should strive for better.

kellysutton• 15 years ago

When designing things, I like to make a few opinionated decisions. Just like we don't support IE6/IE7, we don't bend over backwards for users with JavaScript disabled.

Perhaps my post should be taken with a grain of salt if developing for mobile platforms, where sending unnecessary data to the user is a real concern. Leaving an extra input element on the page here or there likely won't affect the desktop experience, though.

Thanks you for taking the time to respond! Critical thought makes us all better off.

OpenAmazing• 15 years ago

(This is different from worrying about pages that “degrade gracefully” is a terrible idead in my opinion. If you’re not using JavaScript, you’re not using the web. Special considerations shouldn’t be made for you.)

That's the full quote. And I agree.

Whatever your business is, its doubtful that supporting browsers with Javascript disabled would help.

"Degrade gracefully" - at least to the extremes (no js, no css) is just bragging rights / pride for developers. I can't imagine a business scenario where this would be a legitimate requirement.

thwarted• 15 years ago

I can't imagine a business scenario where [degrade gracefully] would be a legitimate requirement.

Not degrading gracefully, which rather than being a way to say you're going to support older versions or browsers without certain "advanced" or "specific" capabilities, is one way we ended up with bank, utility and government websites that only work in Internet Explorer. Most of those days are thankfully behind us, but that's mainly because IE doesn't have the market share it once did, and those browsers that do have the significant market share are now more compatible with each other. Often sites are more complicated than they need to be anyway, and if they weren't so complicated, they wouldn't need to degrade, gracefully or otherwise.

Dynamically Generated Forms and HTML5

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