Re: Reasons for not using <noscript> (was: Google Adsense ... not accessible)

On 1/30/06, David Dorward <david@us-lot.org> wrote:
>
>
> On Mon, 2006-01-30 at 22:00 +0000, David Woolley wrote:
>
> > Jim was suggesting that <noscript> actually implies poor programming.
> > I'd disagree, in part because it is quite likely to be be put in by an
> > accessibility aware programmer when the client is insisting that the
> page
> > should do things that rely on "Javascript" processing.
>
> Poor programming because a client insists on doing it that way is still
> poor programming.
>
> > This relies on the no-scripting case being a don't care condition for
> the
> > client so, whilst the programmer has exceeded their brief, with possible
> > cost implications, the client will probably never know that the fallback
> exists.
>
> The fallback should, and I suspect this was Jim's point, be *graceful*.
>
> <noscript> assumes that there are only two possible outcomes, scripting
> is unsupported, or the script will work. It can't take script failure
> into account.
>
> For example:
>
> <script type="text/javascript">
> doSomethingWith(document.getElementById('foo');
> </script>
> <noscript>
> Something equivalent to doSomethingWith()
> <noscript>
>
> Netscape 4.x supports JavaScript. Assuming it is turned on, it will no
> process the <noscript> element. However, it does not support
> document.getElementById, so it will fail to process the <script>.
>
> Other examples might work only in MSIE, or in browsers which support DOM
> 2.
>
> --
> David Dorward                           <http://dorward.me.uk/>
> "Anybody remotely interesting is mad, in some way or another."
>                              -- The Greatest Show in the Galaxy
>
>
>
I'm curious about this myself...so to be accessible, you would probably want
deprecated handling of older DOM's not just testing for the latest else
<noscript/>


--
Anthony Ettinger
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