Mental dominance of Javascript

Somehow yesterday while searching for something web-related, I

stumbled across a question posted at Quora (yeah, I know, Quora,

gross) and the entire thing depressed me terribly.

The question was "Can I make a website with absolutely no JavaScript

and just CSS and HTML?"[1].

How tragic that we have come to the point that people who know what

those three things are have to ask this! That the idea of a JS-free

website has taken on some mysterious air of

only-just-maybe-possibility.

The answers inspire no greater faith. Some excerpts:

With JavaScript your website becomes more user friendly, less server

dependent and less error prone.

You can, but you shouldn't. If you're even remotely serious about

your website, you want to include a little Javascript-snippet for

Google Analytics.

If you're just making a site that contains info that doesn't change

continuously (like, maybe just a site that just has one thing, like

...information on trees?) then yeah. Otherwise? You're gonna wanna

learn JavaScript.

(I love the thinly veiled implication that an unchanging website that

provides information on a single topic is completely worthless and

not something a sane person would waste their time creating!)

Yes...but javascript help you to make your website more amazing

Also, no fewer than three people claim that websites without Js are

called "static websites", and somehow nobody has corrected them.

Bah! Thank goodness more and more stuff is available on gopher these

days.

[1] https://www.quora.com/Can-I-make-a-website-with-absolutely-no-JavaScript-and-just-CSS-and-HTML