RE: ISSUE-237 (Define Mobile Web Applications): What is the definition of a "Mobile Web Application" for the purposes of BP2? [Mobile Web Applications Best Practices]

Magnus,
Would you agree at least that we while we may focus on identifying best practices for one type of web application environment (the "core" use case of traditional browser-based applications, with all the latest web technologies at their disposal), there is a good chance that these best practices may also be useful to developers of other types of web-enabled applications? 

As an example: say I have a social networking/blogging application. This application allows me to upload pictures/video/text via XMLHTTPRequest to a social networking site that also has desktop browser support (which many of my non-mobile friends use). It also provides an automatically updated view of my blog and that of others to who I subscribe, using standard content syndication and automated web site retrieval methods. Does it really matter if this is a widget-based web application implemented using a web runtime library for various "web" functions e.g. networking/DOM/rendering/interaction, or via a conventional web site browser based upon the very same web runtime library? They are both supporting the same application, using the same technologies, and will benefit from consideration of the same best practices.

What is the value of implicitly/explicitly differentiating between these two use cases in terms of the value of best practices they obviously will have in common?

This can't simply be a "turf" issue, where presumably W3C intentionally remains "hands off" widget/MIDP-based web applications for some reason (why? to prevent them from being inhibited by best practices?).

AT&T's goal as a service provider and developer program provider is to guide developers in consistent use of best practices regardless of the type of mobile web application they design, or its runtime environment.

Best regards,
Bryan Sullivan | AT&T

-----Original Message-----
From: public-bpwg-request@w3.org [mailto:public-bpwg-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Magnus Lönnroth
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2008 3:34 PM
To: Scheppe, Kai-Dietrich; Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group WG
Subject: RE: ISSUE-237 (Define Mobile Web Applications): What is the definition of a "Mobile Web Application" for the purposes of BP2? [Mobile Web Applications Best Practices]


I'm not sure I'm interpreting this right, but I think I agree with Dan's text in the issue statement. I like to divide the world into 

a) applications that run within i standard web browser (context)

and

b) applications that don't

I think BPWG should focus on the former.

Standalone J2ME apps (and applets) belong to the latter and can probably best be considered client-server applications. They might happen to use HTTP as a transport, but that's kind of unimportant I think. They might also interact with a browser somehow but I also find that unimportant. I would not call them web applications.

Attempting to say anything about apps that aren't constrained by a web browser (i.e. expressed in HTML and JavaScript) seems pretty open ended. 

thanks,

Magnus Lönnroth
Head of PDU SDP
Development Unit Multimedia Products
Ericsson AB
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: public-bpwg-request@w3.org
> [mailto:public-bpwg-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Scheppe, Kai-Dietrich
> Sent: den 21 februari 2008 18:02
> To: Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group WG
> Subject: RE: ISSUE-237 (Define Mobile Web Applications): What is the 
> definition of a "Mobile Web Application" for the purposes of BP2? 
> [Mobile Web Applications Best Practices]
> 
> 
> A web application exposes some sort of interface to the user.
> This interface may be an application running in the browser itself or 
> it may be an application running on the server, but display some GUI 
> with which the user may interact.
> 
> Moving this into a mobile context, a web application must run without 
> any additions, such as plugins or Java.
> 
> -- Kai
> 
> 
> Please make note of my new email address:
> k.scheppe@telekom.de
>  
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: public-bpwg-request@w3.org
> > [mailto:public-bpwg-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Mobile Web Best 
> > Practices Working Group Issue Tracker
> > Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 5:43 PM
> > To: public-bpwg@w3.org
> > Subject: ISSUE-237 (Define Mobile Web Applications): What is the 
> > definition of a "Mobile Web Application" for the purposes of BP2? 
> > [Mobile Web Applications Best Practices]
> > 
> > 
> > ISSUE-237 (Define Mobile Web Applications): What is the definition 
> > of a "Mobile Web Application" for the purposes of BP2? [Mobile Web 
> > Applications Best Practices]
> > 
> > http://www.w3.org/2005/MWI/BPWG/Group/track/issues/
> > 
> > Raised by: Daniel Appelquist
> > On product: Mobile Web Applications Best Practices
> > 
> > We have a number of different (but I would say converging) views on 
> > what constitutes a Mobile Web Application.  My view is that we are 
> > talking about applications for which the user interface element 
> > executes in the browser/web technologies context. I would 
> > specifically put device APIs out of scope. I would specifically put 
> > widgets out of scope. I would specifically put non-"web" 
> > technologies such as flash and silverlight out of scope. Jo has 
> > suggested we could use the criterion of whether or not the 
> > technology uses the underlying technology of the DOM to define "Web 
> > technologies."  As agreed on today's call, this is an important 
> > enough issue to pull out from the discussion on scope and give it 
> > its own issue.  I want to come back to this issue on next week's 
> > call and take a resolution on this point so we can get this out of 
> > the way before the next F2f.
> > 
> > Discuss!
> > 
> > Dan
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> 
>

Received on Saturday, 23 February 2008 22:08:21 UTC