i absolutely hate how the modern web just fails to load if one has javascript turned off. i, as a user, should be able to switch off javascript and have the site work exactly as it does with javascript turned on. it’s not a hard concept, people.
but you ask candidates to explain “graceful degradation” and they’ll sit and look at you with a blank stare.
personally I think this is mostly due to for some reason people tend to give up on visiting a website if it takes more than a second or two to load(guilty as charged though), so instead they load a mostly blank page (which gives the sign that its loading) and then use javascript to load the rest of the content in.
that and fucking ads galore
And trackers.
And Javascript that give you the time in the page, as if you didn’t have a clock on your desktop.
And Javascript that give you a fake chat window to talk to a shitty AI nobody wants in the bottom-right corner.
And Javascript to annoy you with GDPR shit everybody absent-mindedly clicks away anyway.
And Javascript to inform you that the site uses cookies, as if it mattered since it won’t work without cookies.
And Javascript that nags you for a subscription or stop you scrolling to force you to create an account.
…
And of course, all that is done by loading megabytes and megabytes of shit recursively from a kajillion nested addresses because web “developers” couldn’t code tight code if their lives depended on it. All they do is import pre-chewed shit that acts as trojans for big data players to plant more trackers and more ads in your browser, just to serve up barf people by and large don’t give a shit about.