My understanding of HTMX is that the main draw is not having to write JS as a dev, not not having to run JS as a user.

Optional JS is a term already for web pages that degrade gracefully when JS is turned off.

It's a shady marketing technique to hijack that term when it doesn't work that way.

it does work that way though

Sorry, I don't believe it. I believe with <arbitrary, unspecified, framework-external work & attention to detail> you could progressively degrade an HTMX page, but there's nothing free about it.

Consider this example linked in the thread somewhere, and argue convincingly it would be useful for someone with JS disabled. Otherwise, argue for me why the examples aren't canonical, and that the machinery to wire this meaningfully wrt progressive degradation would be trivial. https://htmx.org/examples/active-search/

You seem to have a very strong negative opinion about something which you have a very tenuous understanding. Is this you approach most things you don't understand?

> Is this you approach most things you don't understand?

I would be delighted if you could do two things for me. One, can you explain what it is I seem to be misunderstanding?

Two, could you answer the question - already posed - which would backup your claims that <noscript> is a benefit HTMX for free:

> Consider this example linked in the thread somewhere, and argue convincingly it would be useful for someone with JS disabled. Otherwise, argue for me why the examples aren't canonical, and that the machinery to wire this meaningfully wrt progressive degradation would be trivial. https://htmx.org/examples/active-search/

I acknowledge this explicitly in the original comment. I contest "JavaScript optional" as it implies JavaScript is, well, optional for users. I think this misleads about HTMX's capabilities, construction, and purpose, and seems easy to read as having bad intentions vis a vis <noscript>.

I admit my emotional disdain for this type of framework calling itself "modern" coloured my original comment strongly enough to perhaps make it less clear I am primarily upset about <noscript> being implied as a free capability of HTMX.

when there's no javascript those attributes do nothing and your webpage acts like normal. ie, link clicks do a full page load. so your website works with or without javascript.