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Out of curiosity - what do you believe the web is, exactly? Because if you're ruling out his approach - you're also mostly ruling out the entire article here (

Out of curiosity - what do you believe the web is, exactly? Because if you're ruling out his approach - you're also mostly ruling out the entire article here (since this approach does not in any way solve your datastore needs).

imiric 4y ago
Right, I was a bit harsh with the "it's not the web" remark. Ultimately, the web is what we make of it, and it's not up to anyone to claim it's one thing or the other. Initially, the "web" had a clear definition: a client-server architecture, a markup language to render data from the server, a protocol for the client to request data from the server, and a universal format to reference data. Then we added more technologies to improve styling, interactivity, P2P protocols, etc., and it's been evolving ever since. Instead of documents, we served apps. Thin clients were deemed unsuitable, until we realized performance might be an issue, and now we can choose whichever approach makes sense for the product. So I'd say I'm a bit of a traditionalist in this sense, and think that a web app should still involve frequent communication with a server. If you're building a product using web technologies, but it's running entirely (or mostly) offline, that's great, but it's not part of the World Wide Web. You could use any number of technologies to build a desktop app at that point, and using web frameworks and a web browser is a choice made out of convenience, rather than suitability. After all, if you download an installer over HTTP for an offline desktop app written in a non-web language, would that still count as a "web app"? We have to draw the line somewhere, and I suppose it's a matter of preference where that is done. Or maybe the line is forever blurred and web apps are all that we have now... > Because if you're ruling out his approach - you're also mostly ruling out the entire article here (since this approach does not in any way solve your datastore needs). I don't think that's the case. I may disagree with the assertion that "the future of the web is on the edge", but the article still suggests a traditional client-server model. It's just that the server is now distributed and closer to the client, which in general is a good idea.

imiric 4y ago

Right, I was a bit harsh with the "it's not the web" remark. Ultimately, the web is what we make of it, and it's not up to anyone to claim it's one thing or the other. Initially, the "web" had a clear definition: a client-server architecture, a markup language to render data from the server, a protocol for the client to request data from the server, and a universal format to reference data. Then we added more technologies to improve styling, interactivity, P2P protocols, etc., and it's been evolving ever since. Instead of documents, we served apps. Thin clients were deemed unsuitable, until we realized performance might be an issue, and now we can choose whichever approach makes sense for the product. So I'd say I'm a bit of a traditionalist in this sense, and think that a web app should still involve frequent communication with a server. If you're building a product using web technologies, but it's running entirely (or mostly) offline, that's great, but it's not part of the World Wide Web. You could use any number of technologies to build a desktop app at that point, and using web frameworks and a web browser is a choice made out of convenience, rather than suitability. After all, if you download an installer over HTTP for an offline desktop app written in a non-web language, would that still count as a "web app"? We have to draw the line somewhere, and I suppose it's a matter of preference where that is done. Or maybe the line is forever blurred and web apps are all that we have now... > Because if you're ruling out his approach - you're also mostly ruling out the entire article here (since this approach does not in any way solve your datastore needs). I don't think that's the case. I may disagree with the assertion that "the future of the web is on the edge", but the article still suggests a traditional client-server model. It's just that the server is now distributed and closer to the client, which in general is a good idea.