linuxmemes

In reality now it's used for full on software applications.

I think software applications are better made as actual applications instead of browser-based web-apps.

it's also used for dynamically updating the UI.

It might seem useful on the surface but is prone to the same sorts of breakage and annoyances I was talking about.

A world you speak of would mean much worse order forms, paperwork for doctors, etc. I mean you do you, but you can't just not acknowledge that dynamic updates of a UI are better than filling out a long form then getting back "invalid data, you selected this and entered that, start over".

That's an interesting example, because that's happened to both of my parents within the past few months from two different healthcare-related sites. The javascript elements frustrated them more than me, since they didn't understand why certain things weren't working, and I had to figure it out for them. And there were a few times when we had to start over due to the sites being poorly made.

That's really what I see in this reliance on javascripts, corner-cutting which causes problems. Properly-configured sites work better, and the ones reliant on javascript tend not to be.

I would prefer static order forms so that I can have the entire form and fill it out before submitting, while retaining a copy so that if there were issues I could more quickly and efficiently resubmit with the corrections.

Some people might prefer the dynamically updating UI stuff, but except for live chats I can't see a good use for it that static pages can't do better. And I think live chats are better in non-web apps which support end-to-end encryption anyway.

The tracking concerns are mostly mitigated by vpns, ad blockers, and private browser features.

The most useful and efficient private browsing feature is the ability to disable javascripts. Using vpns and ad-blockers protects against very specific vectors of surveillance, while javascripts allow a diverse set of surveillance capabilities, so blocking them protects against several forms of surveillance. And with more people disabling javascripts, we all blend together better.

you may prefer static documents, but modern society is built on forms and other types of vital apps, which would inevitably be worse without javascript.

Modern society is also built on ignorance, conformity, and exploitation, all of which make javascript-based sites more dangerous and prone to issues. It's the easy answer thrown at every problem, like "a.i." and is similarly dangerous.