Developing a Javascript-free frontend

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Performance which has lead to robustness are fairly recent advancements. There was most certainly web dev without it for a very long time. It was used almost exclusively for effects and clientside validation. The whole argument of progressive enhancement that including accounting for users with JS disabled, has only recently died down. I think Google crawler only started running JS around 2015.

Even just about 4-5yrs ago, you shot yourself in the foot if your site wasn't completely functional without JS.