3 ms·

Putting Apps on the Web

23 points by jchrisa 16y ago

Xurinos 16y ago
General rule: If your "web app" changes the behavior of the back and forward buttons, you are doing it wrong.
- jchrisa 16y ago
  I'm suggesting that you can call it a web app even if it doesn't run in a browser at all. What matters is that the data is linkable / remixable. The UI doesn't matter.
  - Xurinos 16y ago
    It is like saying my MUD is a web app. A MUD is a service accessible with a telnet client and usually accessed by special "MUD clients" as opposed to plain telnet; these clients parse, record, and manipulate MUD data. How loose is this definition? The way phone networks are stitched together today, you could call the phone operation a web app, too. In some places, I have found the Skype app over 3G to have higher quality than my AT&T connection via my iPhone. The only difference between the two appears to be which application I use. As far as I know, nobody calls any mobile app a web app unless it was obviously a direct link to some webpage taken directly from a browser. I was once hired to help a company transfer financial data over their modem/fax lines. The data is linkable, mixable, and transfers between systems. Was that a web app? Is the File Explorer, when it views files on a remote Windows share, a web app, even if I am connected by a null cable between two systems? More accurately, I think you are describing any application connected to a network, as opposed to what we traditionally call "an app that runs on the web". I am not convinced that the Dark Mists MUD gets "web app" status, even if I redirect a port through apache to the MUD server. I concede the point, though, if we are talking about providing clients other than browsers to users. My original post contradicts the idea that we should write fancy apps in the browser. I have no problem with conjuring a new kind of protocol that runs over our network and provides an application feel (for example, X). It is, IMHO, silly to break features in the real app people use (the browser). If you are referring to something completely different, then I am off topic.
    - jchrisa 16y ago
      I'm talking about native apps that are based on APIs so RESTful that a browser could also do the good stuff the native app does, if only someone wrote the UI code for it.
steveyen 16y ago
I see this as the unevenly distributed future. Eventually, some API layer will "win" that unifies or abstracts away our various local data store headaches (sqlite, gears, localstorage, coredata). CRUD once, replicate anywhere (and anytime the connection comes back). Even if your app is an App instead of a webapp. A REST-ful approach, such as with apache couch, with an open, easy to implement (copy?) protocol that just stands on the shoulders of the web will win. Allowing the app itself to be treated as just more auto-replicated data is yummy meta frosting.

23 points by jchrisa 16y ago

Xurinos 16y ago

General rule: If your "web app" changes the behavior of the back and forward buttons, you are doing it wrong.

jchrisa 16y ago
I'm suggesting that you can call it a web app even if it doesn't run in a browser at all. What matters is that the data is linkable / remixable. The UI doesn't matter.
- Xurinos 16y ago
  It is like saying my MUD is a web app. A MUD is a service accessible with a telnet client and usually accessed by special "MUD clients" as opposed to plain telnet; these clients parse, record, and manipulate MUD data. How loose is this definition? The way phone networks are stitched together today, you could call the phone operation a web app, too. In some places, I have found the Skype app over 3G to have higher quality than my AT&T connection via my iPhone. The only difference between the two appears to be which application I use. As far as I know, nobody calls any mobile app a web app unless it was obviously a direct link to some webpage taken directly from a browser. I was once hired to help a company transfer financial data over their modem/fax lines. The data is linkable, mixable, and transfers between systems. Was that a web app? Is the File Explorer, when it views files on a remote Windows share, a web app, even if I am connected by a null cable between two systems? More accurately, I think you are describing any application connected to a network, as opposed to what we traditionally call "an app that runs on the web". I am not convinced that the Dark Mists MUD gets "web app" status, even if I redirect a port through apache to the MUD server. I concede the point, though, if we are talking about providing clients other than browsers to users. My original post contradicts the idea that we should write fancy apps in the browser. I have no problem with conjuring a new kind of protocol that runs over our network and provides an application feel (for example, X). It is, IMHO, silly to break features in the real app people use (the browser). If you are referring to something completely different, then I am off topic.
  - jchrisa 16y ago
    I'm talking about native apps that are based on APIs so RESTful that a browser could also do the good stuff the native app does, if only someone wrote the UI code for it.

steveyen 16y ago

I see this as the unevenly distributed future. Eventually, some API layer will "win" that unifies or abstracts away our various local data store headaches (sqlite, gears, localstorage, coredata). CRUD once, replicate anywhere (and anytime the connection comes back). Even if your app is an App instead of a webapp. A REST-ful approach, such as with apache couch, with an open, easy to implement (copy?) protocol that just stands on the shoulders of the web will win. Allowing the app itself to be treated as just more auto-replicated data is yummy meta frosting.