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I am in the process of building a video sharing CMS that uses lots of jQuery and ajax for everything from rich UI effects to submitting and retrieving data to and from the database. When JavaScript is disabled it everything falls apart and 90% of the functionality doesn't work.
I am beginning to think its ok to not degrade gracefully for certain types of sites like this one which uses a flash player to stream the main content - the videos. So what would be the point of going to great lengths to enable dual support on everything else if the main content of the site can't be viewed. Even YouTube breaks with JS disabled.
I'm planning to release the CMS under open source license, so the question is:
For mass distribution (and for this type of site) is not degrading gracefully a good idea?
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Graceful degradation is the ability of a computer, machine, electronic system or network to maintain limited functionality even when a large portion of it has been destroyed or rendered inoperative. The purpose of graceful degradation is to prevent catastrophic failure.
Progressive enhancement is a more sophisticated and at the same time stable way of assuring that but it takes more time and effort. Graceful degradation can be used more easily as a patch for an already existing product; it means harder maintenance later on, but requires less initial work.
As long as you make it clear to the users that they need JS enabled, it is ok for it to "fall apart" without JS. However, if you give no indication that it shouldn't work without JS, then people will get angry. Most people nowadays expect sites to require JS in some aspect of their functionality.
For something as complex as a CMS with videos, it is the users fault if they don't enable JS. They shouldn't expect something like that work without JS, and even if they do, it's probably not worth your time maintaining two versions of your site: JS and non-JS, especially for something that is open source.
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Seeing as your application relies on javascript for its entire purpose, it is impossible for you to degrade gracefully. As long as your site clearly tells the user to enable javascript to get all of your awesome functionality, and maybe some links as to how to do so in different browsers, you should be fine. :D
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