[FX.php List] Ajax/LAJAX's JavaScript requirements

[Kevin Futter]

On 19/10/06 7:19 AM, "Joel Shapiro" <jsfmp at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Hi all
> 
> I've just been playing w/ LAJAX and it's very cool, but I'm wondering
> how practical it is to use in a real site because of its JavaScript
> requirements (this would be for anything using Ajax).  I doubt many
> people these days disable JavaScript on their browser, but because
> it's a possibility, it seems you'd need to test for it first and then
> provide other options for when JS is disabled (or provide
> instructions for the user to enable it).  Also, I notice that LAJAX
> requires JavaScript 1.2, but that seems likely a non-issue since that
> came out in 1997 (or is it?).
> 
> How are people dealing with this?  Anyone using it in production?
> 
> Thanks,
> -Joel

Few people deliberately disable JavaScript, so you're right there (though
some indeed do). However, some corporate firewalls will be configured to
strip JS from HTTP transactions as a security measure. At the end of the
day, since JS is a core component of any AJAX mechanism, you need to treat
it like any other JS functionality: always provide a fallback. In fact, the
best way to handle this is to build a framework that works as advertised
without any fancy scripts or AJAX, and then overlay that functionality using
unobtrusive scripting techniques. Graceful degradation is the end result,
and should be a primary goal of modern web development.

-- 
Kevin Futter
Webmaster, St. Bernard's College
http://www.sbc.melb.catholic.edu.au/



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