JavaScript, browsers, and interactivity

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@Dissolved

JavaScript is required for making a webpage’s content dynamic. Without JavaScript, things like Twine would not exist. The web-based interpreters for parser adventures would not exist.

Just because the browser might not be able to handle, say, Discourse, doesn’t mean that the browser would be unable to handle Twine games.

I’m not sure I understand what you are getting at.

JavaScript (JS) allows webpage content to be manipulated on the fly. That’s all we really need to acknowledge about it. There isn’t anything less or more required of JS when presenting a Discourse forum website (aside from server calls) or a Twine game. Both use basically the same JS functionality under the hood.

There are many JavaScript engines in the many different browsers out there. However, at their core, they all strive to adhere to ECMAScript specifications… which is JavaScript.

→ JavaScript Technologies Overview

Anyway, I feel that JavaScript is synonymous to interactivity in webpages. It’s unfortunate that the world is sold on complicating things with bells and whistles (and advertising), but JavaScript is required to make interactive (beyond static) webpages. What a web developer does with JavaScript is the contentious part, not the technology itself.

For example, I may want to hide or show a piece of content in a Twine game. That same functionality is also used to show pop-up ads all over a webpage. What do we do about that?