Yup. Browsers used to render all pages incrementally, so you could simply keep the HTTP connection open and add more HTML text to the page, and it would just get tacked on to the bottom. Then you had a CGI endpoint in a separate footer frame (sort of like an iframe but arranged in a Grid-like layout) with a "Read More..." form button for requesting more data. It worked really well and didn't even need to use JS.
You can still do this. I wrote a chess game that checks arg 0 for "cgi" (otherwise it uses a VT interface) and renders a new board in the browser every time the other player makes a move. It works with absolutely no javascript.
> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
> Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
You know, maybe sass isn't appreciated on this site, but it's pretty pathetic to imagine someone could unironically imply any part of UI was a solved problem in the 90's and not face a challenge here. UI engineering is a discipline which most software engineers grossly underestimate the complexity of
