>>15
It is perfectly possible to write JS that degrades cleanly, and with a good coding environment it won't double your workload.

Every sane web browser supports JS, and that includes some browsers made for disabled people. There are only 3 categories of users without JS:

• People who suffer from retarded "security" considerations from a clueless IT department, in companies or libraries. Screw 'em for using somebody else's Interweb.

• 12 or 60 year old UNIX geeks who use Lynx or W3m (even Links/Elinks has some minimal JS support). definitely screw 'em.

• People who disable it (and therefore can re-enable it) for some reason. They have already considered the pros and cons of disabling javascript, and the fact that JS is more and more used for good and that pop-up blocking and ad-blocking actually works make this position less justifiable everyday. Screw yourself if your website doesn't degrade cleanly without JS, or doesn't provide enough incentive to re-enable JS.

According to stats, they represent 10% of the net. They don't justify not using JS, but they justify making sure the app is usable without JS, even at the cost of a much more clumsier app.

And regarding the size of the file, the last prototype.js ( http://prototype.conio.net/dist/prototype-1.3.1.js ) is 28KB large. Most websites have logos that are much larger than that. It is a very reasonable file size on most websites. Don't forget that you can also compact it (at the cost of obfuscating it and computing power) using a javascript compressor like this one: http://dean.edwards.name/packer/
And don't forget that most browsers accept gzipped content ( http://www.schroepl.net/projekte/mod_gzip/browser.htm )