When used well, JS will improve the experience especially for high-latency low bandwidth users. Not doing full page refreshes for example, or not loading all data at once.
So no, "no JS at all" is not "by far the lightest weight" in many cases. This is just uncritically repeating dogma. Even 5K to 20K of JS can significantly increase performance.
So no, "no JS at all" is not "by far the lightest weight" in many cases. This is just uncritically repeating dogma. Even 5K to 20K of JS can significantly increase performance.