4 ms·

Would like to see "sites" vs "webapps"

by RocketSyntax 8y ago

koboll 8y ago
What's the difference? WordPress, for example, is arguably a web app.
- glvn 8y ago
  It's really hard to classify WP as one or the other. Depending on what setup & plugins you are running it could either be essentially a static site or one that a web app for all intents and purposes.
bigblind 8y ago
That's quite a blurry line, though. How much functionality does a site need to become a web app?
- kowdermeister 8y ago
  In my definition: Website: main focus is information serving, documents, designs, texts, assets, etc. Webapp: users can create some kind of output from the service that's based on creative input. The line is still blurry, but more narrow and contrasted.
- derefr 8y ago
  I would describe a web-app as “any website that can’t be replaced by a Static Site Generator outputting to a public_html directory of a stock-standard Apache 1.3 installation on a locked-down server that has no CGI-bin.” (So, the SSG could output .htaccess files, and even files that contain Server Side Includes, but can’t do CGI, FCGI/WSGI, PHP, or in-server Lua like OpenResty.) Or, a simpler definition: a webapp is any website that you can’t effectively host on your ca. 1995 ISP’s web hosting. Many webapps where the “app” is purely in a CMS backend (e.g. most Wordpress sites) are websites. Unless they include comments, in which case they’re not. Unless those comments are JavaScript-embedded third-party (e.g. Disqus) comments, in which case they are. :)
  - coolreader18 8y ago
    That's an incredibly narrow definition. Why does the backend's capabilities matter? If a site has comments set up through its own backend vs through Disqus, the UX will/could be pretty much the same.
    - derefr 8y ago
      Because we're talking about the backend-deployment+ops-jargon terms "website" and "webapp", not their general usage. Words can have precise jargon meanings which are different in different disciplines. This is where ops people tend to draw the line: a website is something you can deploy to e.g. an S3 bucket and it'll be fully functional, with no other dependencies that you have to maintain for it. A webapp is something that does have such dependencies that you need to set up and maintain—e.g. a database layer. But even ignoring that, I also define the terms this way because of the prefix "web." A webapp isn't "an app on the web", but rather "an app powered by the web." An entirely-offline JavaScript SPA that is just served over the web, isn't a web-app. It's just a program that runs in a browser, just like a Flash or ActiveX or Java applet is a program that runs in a browser. (Is a Flash game a "web game"? It's usually considered a browser game, but that's not the same thing.) We already have a term for the thing that {Flash, ActiveX, Java} applets are: apps. Offline JavaScript SPAs are just apps too. We don't need to add the prefix "web"; it's meaningless here. In any of those cases, if you took the exact same program, and slammed it into an Electron wrapper instead of into a domain-fronted S3 bucket, it would clearly not be a "web app" in any sense. Your SPA would just be "a JavaScript app that uses a browser DOM as its graphics toolkit." Well, that's just as true before you put it in the Electron wrapper. So "web app", then, has a specific meaning, above and beyond "app." You need something extra. That something extra is a backend, which your browser—driven by the app's logic—interacts with over the web. That's what makes an app "a web app." (This definition intentionally encompasses both server-rendered dynamic HTML, and client-rendered JavaScript SPA apps. You don't need a frontend app; you just need a web backend that something is interacting with. That something can be the browser directly, by clicking links and submitting forms; or it can be a JavaScript frontend, using AJAX.) A "web site", then, is a "web app" without the "app" part. If it's clear in the above definition what an "app" is, and what a "web app" is, then you can subtract one from the other to derive a definition of a "web not-app." That's a website: something powered by a web backend, which does not do any app things. If we decide that "app things" are basically "storing state", then a "site" is an "app" with no persistent state. And since the definition of "web" here is about a backend, then the difference between a "web app" and a "web site" (a web not-app) is probably defined by the properties of the backend. So the difference about the ability of the web backend to store state. So a "web site" is a "web app" where the backend does no app things—i.e., stores no state.
buboard 8y ago
as in, they come from the webapp store?
glvn 8y ago
Honestly, I'm wondering how much of that number is currently propped up by Wordpress + other PHP CMS applications.
- adventured 8y ago
  Why would that be a prop? It's an endorsement. Wordpress is an application built in PHP. It qualifies and is as valid as if Wordpress switched to Ruby on Rails and then Rails claimed that market share instead. Given the various improvements in PHP 7.x, including the dramatic speed improvements, it's a top-notch option for the types of applications it should be used for (Wordpress and CMS is a great use case).
criddell 8y ago
Why? What difference does it make? It feels like arguing about whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich.
PunchTornado 8y ago
huh? a site is a weba app

Would like to see "sites" vs "webapps"

koboll 8y ago

What's the difference? WordPress, for example, is arguably a web app.

glvn 8y ago
It's really hard to classify WP as one or the other. Depending on what setup & plugins you are running it could either be essentially a static site or one that a web app for all intents and purposes.

bigblind 8y ago

That's quite a blurry line, though. How much functionality does a site need to become a web app?

kowdermeister 8y ago
In my definition: Website: main focus is information serving, documents, designs, texts, assets, etc. Webapp: users can create some kind of output from the service that's based on creative input. The line is still blurry, but more narrow and contrasted.
derefr 8y ago
I would describe a web-app as “any website that can’t be replaced by a Static Site Generator outputting to a public_html directory of a stock-standard Apache 1.3 installation on a locked-down server that has no CGI-bin.” (So, the SSG could output .htaccess files, and even files that contain Server Side Includes, but can’t do CGI, FCGI/WSGI, PHP, or in-server Lua like OpenResty.) Or, a simpler definition: a webapp is any website that you can’t effectively host on your ca. 1995 ISP’s web hosting. Many webapps where the “app” is purely in a CMS backend (e.g. most Wordpress sites) are websites. Unless they include comments, in which case they’re not. Unless those comments are JavaScript-embedded third-party (e.g. Disqus) comments, in which case they are. :)
- coolreader18 8y ago
  That's an incredibly narrow definition. Why does the backend's capabilities matter? If a site has comments set up through its own backend vs through Disqus, the UX will/could be pretty much the same.
  - derefr 8y ago
    Because we're talking about the backend-deployment+ops-jargon terms "website" and "webapp", not their general usage. Words can have precise jargon meanings which are different in different disciplines. This is where ops people tend to draw the line: a website is something you can deploy to e.g. an S3 bucket and it'll be fully functional, with no other dependencies that you have to maintain for it. A webapp is something that does have such dependencies that you need to set up and maintain—e.g. a database layer. But even ignoring that, I also define the terms this way because of the prefix "web." A webapp isn't "an app on the web", but rather "an app powered by the web." An entirely-offline JavaScript SPA that is just served over the web, isn't a web-app. It's just a program that runs in a browser, just like a Flash or ActiveX or Java applet is a program that runs in a browser. (Is a Flash game a "web game"? It's usually considered a browser game, but that's not the same thing.) We already have a term for the thing that {Flash, ActiveX, Java} applets are: apps. Offline JavaScript SPAs are just apps too. We don't need to add the prefix "web"; it's meaningless here. In any of those cases, if you took the exact same program, and slammed it into an Electron wrapper instead of into a domain-fronted S3 bucket, it would clearly not be a "web app" in any sense. Your SPA would just be "a JavaScript app that uses a browser DOM as its graphics toolkit." Well, that's just as true before you put it in the Electron wrapper. So "web app", then, has a specific meaning, above and beyond "app." You need something extra. That something extra is a backend, which your browser—driven by the app's logic—interacts with over the web. That's what makes an app "a web app." (This definition intentionally encompasses both server-rendered dynamic HTML, and client-rendered JavaScript SPA apps. You don't need a frontend app; you just need a web backend that something is interacting with. That something can be the browser directly, by clicking links and submitting forms; or it can be a JavaScript frontend, using AJAX.) A "web site", then, is a "web app" without the "app" part. If it's clear in the above definition what an "app" is, and what a "web app" is, then you can subtract one from the other to derive a definition of a "web not-app." That's a website: something powered by a web backend, which does not do any app things. If we decide that "app things" are basically "storing state", then a "site" is an "app" with no persistent state. And since the definition of "web" here is about a backend, then the difference between a "web app" and a "web site" (a web not-app) is probably defined by the properties of the backend. So the difference about the ability of the web backend to store state. So a "web site" is a "web app" where the backend does no app things—i.e., stores no state.

buboard 8y ago

as in, they come from the webapp store?

glvn 8y ago

Honestly, I'm wondering how much of that number is currently propped up by Wordpress + other PHP CMS applications.

adventured 8y ago
Why would that be a prop? It's an endorsement. Wordpress is an application built in PHP. It qualifies and is as valid as if Wordpress switched to Ruby on Rails and then Rails claimed that market share instead. Given the various improvements in PHP 7.x, including the dramatic speed improvements, it's a top-notch option for the types of applications it should be used for (Wordpress and CMS is a great use case).

criddell 8y ago

Why? What difference does it make? It feels like arguing about whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich.

PunchTornado 8y ago

huh? a site is a weba app