* Enrico Zini <enrico@enricozini.org>, 2012-05-29, 16:57:
Why does it need JavaScript?Because searching for people for whom you are unsure of the spelling of the name works much better when you get results as you type.The form is also designed to be used by Front Desk to enter new people in the database: you start typing the data for the person, and as you fill in the form you can notice if the person already exists. If there are no results and you are a member of FD, a 'Create user' button appears.I find this is the kind of use case where AJAX really makes the interaction much more efficient.
It's infinitely less efficient for people who are not okay with running untrusted, often non-free (or even undistributable) code on their machines.
-- Jakub Wilk