"This page uses trivial JavaScript"

Chances are, you read the footer, since you landed on a hidden blog post/rant about client-side scripting. It was only recently (see the publication date) that I decided to burden your browsers with 2.4 kilobytes of JavaScript code per page[*]. My previous zealotry of avoiding it was based on privacy and security concerns, that I have with this technology, which I didn't want my few readers to deal with. So, let me explain why this page has a code of size of a photo taken with a Nokia 6600 running in your web browser.

My decision to add JavaScript to the non-critical parts of my website was made for the comfort of average surfer. The core functionality is, and always will be, executed server-side. All scripting is purely cosmetic. Hence, the keys on the top of each page are now clickable and the Quake server schedule tables opts your time zone.

For more information about trivial and non-trivial JavaScript, and the whole problem with this technology I recommend reading The JavaScript trap by Richard Stallman. In general it boils down to the fact, that you don't know what will the website run on your machine. You don't make the informed decision before you visit the site, but blindly risk that webmaster running the page on domain you want to visit does not want to attack you or disrupt your privacy.

Therefore I encourage every visitor to read the mentioned JavaScript code to see what are they executing in their browser. If you don't feel comfortable diving into the code, fire up JShelter to see its intent or disable the JavaScript altogether in your browser (Chrome tutorial, Firefox tutorial) or only for this site with the NoScript. Finally, you can always ditch the whole Web mess and fetch only my trusty RSS feed which I now supply full lenght in plain text.