Re: Offline Web Applications status

Hi, comments inline

2011/3/24 louis-rémi BABE <lrbabe@gmail.com>

> ## Maybe Web devs don't use App Cache because they don't understand
> what it is... ##
>

I think most webdevs are expecting more than what is offered. It seems like
a half baked solution to a potentially useful requirement.


> ## Can you see other reasons? ##
> Before going back to developers or writing yet another App Cache
> documentation, I wanted to have *your* feelings about this mechanism.
> You might have a different impression about its adoption and be aware
> of successful real-world use-cases.
> You might have asked developers yourself and received a different feedback.
> Maybe you feel that Web advocates are not doing a good enough job at
> documenting this feature, producing demos and clarifying its nature.
> Maybe you think that the problem has to do with the specification itself.
> Maybe there is an evolution of the specification underway that I am
> not aware of.
>

One thing that really gripes me is the fact that any changes require you to
re-parse and re-download the entire cache again if any changes are detected
to the manifest. I think the API needed more controls for
inserting/updating/deleting single assets, handling offline XHR calls etc.
What I was really hoping for was the DataCache API[1] to take off but this
seems to of stalled and no longer looks like it will be developed further.

I do believe plenty of developers know about the application cache but it's
not exactly a "sexy" technology that gets huge attention. Perhaps this could
be changed with some compelling use-cases.


>
> ## Two naive questions ##
> After reading a large amount of documentation, I have to admit that I
> am myself confused about app cache:
> Do you think it *can* be used as an auxiliary cache mechanism, and
> what would be the limitations? The main problem I see is that there is
> no way to white-list the referring document (e.g. index.html).
> Currently, I would advocate *against* using it as an auxiliary cache.
> Why isn't there any DOM API allowing a fine-grained control of the
> application cache?
> applicationCache.cache.add( URI );
> applicationCache.cache.remove( URI );
>

See DataCache API[1]

Cheers,

Ryan

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/DataCache/