Scriptless Day 7/7/07 – The Day I Might Lose My Mind

If I'd seen the information on Scriptless Day on the first of April, I'd have been convinced I was being taken by another April Fool's Day joke, but apparently, this is no joke. Some crazies (and I'm using that term with the utmost affection, I assure you) have decided that the best way to highlight the way in which we should give thanks to what JavaScript has brought us in the form of Ajax and Web 2.0 applications is to go a whole day removing any client-side scripts from web sites.

Yes, you read that right. The best way to acknowledge how much JavaScript brings to our everyday lives is to take it away. As they say on their site:

Why Participate? Well first let me ask you this, "Do you use Client-Side JavaScript?" If you do then you know how valuable it is to you in terms of added functionality. You may be using it to animate something to show that a Task has been completed, or you may be using it to display an RSS feed. Try a day without it… without the added functionality… and then come to realize how much you value it. That's all, we just want you to have a single day to "reflect."

I can tell you when I read that I nearly cried. So far, the movement doesn't have many participants, although they've gotten a bit of press over it. I don't blame most Web 2.0 sites for not signing up. Removing JavaScript from most of these sites means that the sites are going to be rendered non-functioning. I thought of my daily visits to sites that rely on JavaScript, like PassPack. I'd miss my widget for MyBlogLog. And what about my Google Analytics? Would that mess up AdSense on blogs? What about all my news feeds I rely on to do my writing?

I'm hoping that the folks behind Scriptless Day will be satisfied with the the fact that I got the shakes just thinking about life without JavaScript for a day. That's about as far as I'm willing to go.

Via Ajaxian