If you're displaying text, then you don't need JavaScript. If you're displaying images, then you don't need JavaScript. If you're displaying short animations, then in theory you don't need JavaScript (I don't know how widely support APNG is though).
If you're displaying movies, maybe you need JavaScript? I don't know if HTML5 video can work without JavaScript (it ought to be able to, but lots of things which ought to be aren't).
If you're accepting user comments, you don't need JavaScript. Forms work just fine without it.
If you're accepting user votes, then you don't technically need JavaScript (but the experience will probably be better with it, unless you're smart).
Really, it's hard to see what one truly needs JavaScript for. Slowing down pages, sure. Destroying your readers' privacy, certainly. Getting root on your readers' computers, no doubt.
I tend to agree. There are far too many purely static sites that just don't need Javascript.
Here's a fun site of mine which has no Javascript, other than in iframes which display video hosted elsewhere.[1] (If Firefox would play HTML5 video from a plain .MP4 file, I'd get rid of that, too.)
>Really, it's hard to see what one truly needs JavaScript for
It's a Turing complete language. You truly need it if you want to do any computation in the browser, modify the DOM, work with Canvas or make asynchronous requests.
Yes, we could all go back to the way the web was in the early 90's when every site was nothing but text and images (and the occasional Java applet) but doing so would also disregard a lot of the very interesting things that javascript allows the web to do as a platform for serving applications as well as documents.
It may be true that most of the web might not absolutely need it, but let's not pretend it serves no valid purpose at all.
Yeah, I was being a bit negative. I'm actually not opposed to the idea of web apps (although I think that the sole virtue of HTML+CSS+JavaScript is that it exists): they really can be useful, and there's no good alternative (which is truly sad).
What annoys me to no end is 'apps' which are really just content browsers. I already have a content browser: it's called…a browser. There are well-defined semantics about how it retrieves content (resources). It works on the command line, within emacs, in a TTY, in a GUI and on my phone. It can be configured to run no untrusted code. It's really, really powerful.
If you're displaying movies, maybe you need JavaScript? I don't know if HTML5 video can work without JavaScript (it ought to be able to, but lots of things which ought to be aren't).
If you're accepting user comments, you don't need JavaScript. Forms work just fine without it.
If you're accepting user votes, then you don't technically need JavaScript (but the experience will probably be better with it, unless you're smart).
Really, it's hard to see what one truly needs JavaScript for. Slowing down pages, sure. Destroying your readers' privacy, certainly. Getting root on your readers' computers, no doubt.