JavaScript considered harmful

[Graham Ashton]

In article <3dg05gdclu.fsf_-_ at ute.mems-exchange.org>, "Andrew Kuchling"
<akuchlin at mems-exchange.org> wrote:

> I deem supporting both cookies and URL IDs to be impractical; 99% of
> people will be happy with the cookied version, so the URL version will
> get very little testing, and it'll add painful complexity to the Web
> server's configuration.

It hardly needs saying, but this doesn't always apply. I used to work at a
company that had major clients who made sure that all their browsers had
cookies turned off. It would have been folly to have ignored them.

Not all computer users live in a free world.

Consequently I plumped for session IDs in the URL and plumbed cookies in
as a replacement for browsers that supported it later. It wasn't exactly
rocket science. Configuration was a piece of cake because we had a rather
nice system (Mason) that let us set it up in one file and it worked for
all pages on the site, so complication didn't really come into it.

Admittedly, it was processor overhead, but in our case that wasn't too
important.

My point is this; context is key. There have been a few too many sweeping
statements in this entire thread. Lots of people have been making good
points, but in different contexts.

-- 
Graham