i absolutely hate how the modern web just fails to load if one has javascript turned off. i, as a user, should be able to switch off javascript and have the site work exactly as it does with javascript turned on. it’s not a hard concept, people.
but you ask candidates to explain “graceful degradation” and they’ll sit and look at you with a blank stare.


Depends. Webapps are a thing, and without JavaScript, there isn’t much to show at all.
Websites that mostly serve static content though? Yeah. Some of them can’t even implement a basic one-line message that asks to turn on JavaScript; just a completely white page, even though the data is there. I blame the multiple “new framework every week” approach. Doubly so for sites that starts loading, actually shows the content, and then it loads some final element that just cover everything up.