Subject: Re: bug#69132: [ELPA] Remove jQuery from elpa.gnu.org

From: Stefan Monnier <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2024 10:18:58 -0500

>   > > There are two fully moral ways to implement a search feature for a web
>   > > site.  One is to implement it inside the web server.  The other is to
>   > > communicate with a free program that the user has installed in per
>   > > computer, and could replace with any other.
>
>   > In this case, both options would be overkill.
>
> Do you mean, they would be more complex than is _technically_
> necessary?  I believe you, but this issue is about a choice that is
> mainly moral, not technical.  This moral issue is about showing
> leadership in avoiding Javascript (even free Javascript) when that is
> possible.

It's funny that here you end up advocating for SaaSS: the users can very
easily do the filtering locally (using the small Javascript snippet we
now provide) but you're advocating for the replacement of this solution with
one that sends the work to the `elpa.gnu.org` server.

I'm not trying to play devil's advocate here.
The issue of having control over what happens in my web-browser is very
real, so I'm also weary of solutions that rely on the web server sending
me some Javascript to execute, but given the current technical
landscape, it does seem to be the best solution also for the end users
like us who want control.

I think that to do any better, we'd have to standardize such "lists that
one might want to filter" so that the filtering code could be provided
once and for all by the user's system (and (re)used on many different
web sites).

        Stefan