Re: Two years on and still no sensible web storage solutions exist

I'd like to propose as a constructive strategy not to flame/offend
everybody right off the bat. I'm sure there's reasons, I'd like to hear
them, too.


On Fri, Nov 9, 2012 at 7:24 PM, Todd Blanchard <toddvblanchard@gmail.com>wrote:

> It has been two years since the following little note was attached to the
> Web SQL Spec
>
> This document was on the W3C Recommendation track but specification work
> has stopped. The specification reached an impasse: all interested
> implementors have used the same SQL backend (Sqlite), but we need multiple
> independent implementations to proceed along a standardisation path.
>
> This move has left the web browser world in disarray and has been widely
> misconstrued by readers to mean "Web SQL is deprecated and will not be
> supported in the future - better port to IndexedDB".
>
> Today, TWO YEARS LATER, we have SQLite on iOS, Android, Chrome, and Safari
> but no IndexedDB.  On Firefox we have IndexedDB with SQLite available only
> via a browser extension
> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/html5-websql-for-firefox/ (annoying
> but liveable), and on IE[89] only DOM storage with IndexedDB expected on IE
> 10.
>
> Sources: http://caniuse.com/indexeddb http://caniuse.com/sql-storage
>
> As someone who is trying to build an offline web app the works both on
> browsers and smart phones and needs to store a lot of client side complex
> data that will require lots of joins - let me just say WTF?
>
> Why do we have standards again?  You're not helping.
>
> I look around at information on the state of storage options and I read
> stuff like this:
> "Since November 18, 2010, the W3C announced that Web SQL database is a
> deprecated specification. This is a recommendation for web developers to no
> longer use the technology as effectively, the spec will receive no new
> updates and browser vendors aren't encouraged to support this technology.
> The new alternative is IndexedDB which is already available on Chrome 12+
> and Firefox 5+, and, soon, in IE 10 as well.
> "
> Was it really the intent to abandon SQL as a concept because everybody is
> using the same well tested and portable library?  Are we doomed to never
> ever having a stable and consistent platform to work on?Because there are
> no competing implementations for browser accessible SQL database access -
> everybody settled on one nice bit of code to fulfill this requirement - the
> specification is dropped and the browser developers drop even trying to
> implement SQL database access and there is even talk of removing it?
>
> WTF is wrong with you people?
>
> IndexedDB is fine - add it.  But don't for a second try to tell me it is
> anywhere near as powerful as having a real SQL database on hand.
>
> Also, the hand waving about how it should be possible to add SQL on top of
> IndexedDB rings hollow.  If it were easy we would have it.  OTOH, going the
> other way seems pretty easy. https://github.com/axemclion/IndexedDBShim maybe
> the developers should just pursue this approach with SQLite and call it a
> day.
>
> Absolutely disgusted.
>
> -Todd Blanchard
>