One of the main things I find myself using javascript for is its innerHTML function (or any other script which swaps the value of a tag on a webpage). Avoidable but undoubtedly useful.
The following reasons are why javascript still haunts the net:
- Newbs who find themselves at bravenet are swarmed with this mass of unnecessary yet "great" javascripts. Surely anything which looks that compucated must be good.
- Old sites, which are often the popular ones used to have to do advanced things with javascript because there wasn't any other choice. There is little need to "upgrade" the site so that it uses server sided scripting as most browsers still support javascript
- People who use free hosting without server sided scripting
Anyway, no server sided script could replace every javascript function because javascript runs at the client and the server sided scripts at the server so javascript will always be able to do stuff server sided scripts cannot.
With regards to javascript vs css, although css can do rollovers (like javascript's
onMouseOver), I don't see css having:
- onChange
- onMouseWheel
- etc....
That's all I can name off-hand but there must be more things it can't do and therefore many more arguements.
The net is still a bit javascript dependant which is why most browsers still support it and it doesn't look at though it's going to be out of use for visual effects or anything else anytime soon because it still has its importance.
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