Re: Progressive Web Apps

Both of these articles are interesting but are very subjective in their
definitions including things like what makes an app "worthy" (in Google's
estimation), and performance criteria like "fast" and use of specific
leading-edge technology that is not yet available in most browsers (Service
Workers). I think to some extent folks are trying to hijack this term
lately.

I think most people are using a more objective definition of a "progressive
web app" as a *web app that uses the Application Shell Architecture in
which (per
https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2015/11/app-shell?hl=en
<https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2015/11/app-shell?hl=en>)  "the
minimal HTML, CSS and JavaScript powering the user interface... load[s] ...
and once loaded, dynamic content can populate your view."*

In other words a "progressive" web app isn't "progressive" because it uses
new technologies, or is fast, or works well across platforms, or other
qualitative things, but "progressive" is simply used as in "progressive
JPEG" - something small and simple loads first, and thus quickly, that can
immediately be interacted with, and that something then bootstraps
everything else that it needs for the fuller app functionality (potentially
doing a full swap of responsibility for all of the visible area from the
original HTML+CSS facade to new JS-driven app code and data that's
subsequently been loaded. So a web app is "progressive" if and only if it
has the "first load its facade and then upgrade itself" property,
regardless of whether it's fast, high quality uses Service Workers, meets
Google's criteria for home page pinnability, etc.

I don't much like the term because there's lots of ways to make a great web
app, the "Application Shell Architecture" is not the only way nor depending
on the use cases for the particular app necessarily the best way. But I
think the word "progressive" has a clear objective meaning, even if it's
narrow.

--Bill


On Mon, Sep 19, 2016 at 11:49 PM, Peter Krautzberger <
peter.krautzberger@mathjax.org> wrote:

> Hi folks,
>
> Since this came up towards the end of today's tpac session, I thought I'd
> share these two links which made several web development news thingies in
> the past few weeks.
>
> Best,
> Peter.
>
> https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2016/09/the-building-
> blocks-of-progressive-web-apps/
>
> https://infrequently.org/2016/09/what-exactly-makes-
> something-a-progressive-web-app/
>



-- 

Bill McCoy
Executive Director
International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF)
email: bmccoy@idpf.org
mobile: +1 206 353 0233