The websites as applications is correct. I see grumblings from some old time grumpy folk about why does this site need JavaScript. Because it's a runtime now. The web has evolved, and aren't you glad it did because flash is dying.
I'm not glad Flash is dying. If we're considering requiring JS for static pages, we didn't learn anything from the horrors of Flash's heyday. Most of the time when I'm browsing the web—does "browsing the web" sound too 1995?—I want a request to return hypertext. A text file with hyperlinks, sections, titles, embedded pictures, forms. I don't want any computation done, I don't want a runtime, I want a trillion linked augmented text files.
I'd rather have Flash + HTML that I can parse and view on any application rather than JS that works on the list of Approved Browsers that were all released within the past week.
Nobody would've made a Flash-only site but for some reason JS-only sites that shut out anyone with slow computers, old computers, mobile browsers that aren't Safari, etc. are totally okay.
