5 ms·
The truth is the reason they pointed to SQLite is because the proposed API was so obscenely complicated that it was easier to point to a reference implementatio
by halo 16y ago
The truth is the reason they pointed to SQLite is because the proposed API was so obscenely complicated that it was easier to point to a reference implementation than to accurately specify a standard, which points to a rather fundamental problem with the proposed standard: SQL is too damn complicated, and embedding it in browsers is a bad idea.
For a web standard to succeed, you need either Mozilla or Microsoft support, preferably both. They have 75% of the browser market between them, so without either any standard is dead on arrival. Chrome, Safari and Opera individually do not have enough marketshare to be a significant influence on the takeup of web standards and still follow in the footsteps of the others. Incidentally, Chrome does support IndexedDB (http://peter.sh/2010/10/indexeddb-milestone-8-es5-strict-mode-and-progress-on-print-preview/ http://peter.sh/2010/10/indexeddb-milestone-8-es5-strict-mod...).
Mozilla have made it clear they are supporting IndexedDB and not WebSQL. Microsoft have publicly posted remarks of support of IndexedDB on the IE blog (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2010/03/09/working-with-the-html5-community.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2010/03/09/working-with-t...) and Pablo Castro, an architect involved with web standards has publicly favoured IndexedDB over WebSQL (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/pablo/archive/2010/01/04/html5-does-databases.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/pablo/archive/2010/01/04/html5-does-...). It's not always easy to judge the inner workings of Microsoft, but I think it's a pretty strong hint as to what they are working on.
The IndexedDB spec seems relatively well-specified to me, and much more detailed than the WebSQL spec. Incidentally, the original authorship of WebSimpleDB was Nikunj Mehta, who was an Oracle employee at the time. The standard didn't originally come from any "braintrust at Mozilla".
- drivebyacct2 16y agoWhy not just use SQLite? Write a small wrapper around it to isolate each website off on it's own database or set of databases. Each site corresponds to a SQLite user with a password that ONLY the browser knows.
- arethuza 16y agoWhich is what Safari and Chrome already do - works perfectly well, even though the asynchronous API takes a wee bit of getting used to.
- sid0 16y agoBecause if everyone used SQLite there would be no second implementation, which is something that is necessary for a proposed standard to become an actual standard.
- Groxx 16y agoI believe you, especially as it makes a number of lines I've heard around this make more sense... but why? Especially in this case, where there is a standard and it's already been implemented by several? Is it just pedantry because they don't get to call the shots?
- sid0 16y ago> where there is a standard There is no standard. There is a proposed standard, but it's failed because it didn't have multiple implementations. > and it's already been implemented by several No, it has exactly one implementation: SQLite. SQLite-in-Safari and SQLite-in-Chrome obviously don't count as different implementations.
- Groxx 16y agoIt has one implementation implemented identically in more than one browser. SQLite. Which is a standard with an implementation to compare against. Anyway. Yes, there is only one implementation, one standard, one non-W3C-spec. Why does it matter to them that there's no competing spec, when they could just support something that is already out there, and can be solved by pointing to http://www.sqlite.org/docs.html http://www.sqlite.org/docs.html ? The API for accessing it is mindlessly simple and small, documenting that would take a day at worst. It seems they're trying to run it into the ground because they don't control it, because it didn't go through their proper procedure, whereby it must have a competitor. Why? In what way is this helpful? And if they're not being helpful, what's their purpose? To be dogmatic and prevent good ideas they didn't come up with from spreading? --- edit: >The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international community where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop Web standards. Led by Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee and CEO Jeffrey Jaffe, W3C's mission is to lead the Web to its full potential. Contact W3C for more information. (from http://www.w3.org/Consortium/ http://www.w3.org/Consortium/) How does trying to prevent it aid in "lead[ing] the Web to its full potential"?
- zachrose 16y ago> For a web standard to succeed, you need either Mozilla or Microsoft support, preferably both. They have 75% of the browser market between them, so without either any standard is dead on arrival I don't get it. If IE6 can be kept afloat by enterprise web apps that weren't designed for anything else, why can't there be web apps with offline features that only work with Chrome and Safari?
- sid0 16y agoIE6's hanging around isn't looked at as a good thing.
- carussell 16y agoMozilla is taking a very myopic, "high-road" approach that is similar to, and less justifiable, the whole h.264 debacle: Everyone loses, but someone gets to hold their head up high. It'd be nice if you'd, you know, qualify this or something.