[ruby-core:71727] Re: [Ruby trunk - Feature #11741] Migrate Ruby to Git from Subversion

["Martin J. Dürst" <duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp>]

Hello Jon,

On 2015/11/29 01:20, me@jonathanmoss.me wrote:
> Issue #11741 has been updated by Jon Moss.
>
>
> Hi Eric,
>
> I think it's unreasonable to ask a website to degrade and work normally without any GUI or use of Javascript -- these are the core foundations of the web today, and in order to use the web, you must use these technologies.

I think this is wrong. Graceful degradation has always been an important 
part of Web technology. So has Accessibility. If a Web site isn't as 
flashy or slick when switching off JavaScript (or CSS, or something 
else), that's just fine. However, if a Web site is unusable/very 
difficult to use if you don't use JavaScript, then that's a 
design/implementation problem that can and should be fixed.

[This may not apply to all Web sites, e.g. not to in-browser gaming, but 
it definitely should apply to sites such as redmine/github/gitlab.]


> I also think it's uncalled for to ask a website to work through a terminal window

There are special Web browsers that take care of this.

> -- again, this is not what the modern web was designed for.

See above.

> If you do need Gitlab to work without a GUI or JS, Gitlab has a great API and you can build a small Sinatra app for yourself to consume Gitlab's data.

How would a blind user, or a user that's otherwise challenged, build a 
Sinatra app? Why would she have to build a Sinatra app just to cover for 
design mistakes of the creators of the Web site.

> Most software projects these days (especially ones created in Ruby) do not use mailing lists for contributions.

"do not" -> "do not only". Ruby uses mailing lists, and I guess we would 
accept a contribution on a mailing list if there were some interest in 
the contribution among the committers.

> I am not trying to be rude by saying this, but I don't think the ideology of one person should be holding back a migration like this. I am happy to try and find common ground, but I think some of your requests are a little too much (example would be needing site to be viewable over terminal, with no JS).

A Web site such as gitlab to be viewable and usable (not necessarily 
with exactly the same bells and whistles as in a graphical browser) in a 
terminal-based browser without JavaScript would just be to adhere to 
best Web application design practice, so I have strong difficulties to 
understand why such a request would be "too much".

Regards,   Martin.