Re: [w3ctag/design-reviews] Back/Forward Cache (#628)

Hi @rakina! I took a look at this during a breakout at our F2F this week.

> We’ve recently looked into how BFCache is specified in the HTML spec and other standards, and noticed some problems with the current state. We’ve identified possible solutions for some of them[…]

Thanks for bringing this to our attention! This is really great work.

> * We have concrete proposal to update various docs ([Web Platform Design Principles](https://w3ctag.github.io/design-principles/) and [Security and Privacy Questionnaire](https://www.w3.org/TR/security-privacy-questionnaire/))

We (the TAG) would be super happy to review & merge any PRs you'd like to send our way to improve these documents.

> but there are open questions on more high-level stuff such as “How should we retrofit current APIs”

I think you're right that there's sometimes a tension when retrofitting between compat and the reasonable desire to have as many pages eligible for the bfcache as possible. I don't think there's an overall answer—gaguing the severity of a compat hit is ultimately an empirical question, as is the question of how many page's eligibility is negatively affected. You need to take things on a case-by-case basis. And it's clear from your explainer that you understand the tradeoffs.

> “Which behavior should be specified and which should be left to user agents’ discretion?”

I think this is ultimately pragmatic. All things being equal, it's better to fully specify things, but there are legitimate reasons for User Agents' policies to differ from one another. The best way to determine if a feature's behavior can be specified or left to user agents' discretion is to ask the engineers who work on that feature in each user agent. How feasible would it be for them to change their behavior to match the desired behavior? If it wouldn't be feasible, is there a way to partially specify things, to narrow the interop gap without entirely closing it? What can everyone live with?

> Our goal is to improve currently-existing specifications and also ensure new APIs are designed with BFCache support in mind by integrating it into the existing design guidelines (and hopefully TAG reviews can help enforce this).

This is a great goal and I hope you succeed.

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