Re: Static data for web pages

On Sun, 10 May 2020 at 11:09, Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi Tag
>
> I wanted to ask about a possible data model for the web.  Whether it
> exists, or whether or not it's a good idea.
>
> It revolves around the popular idea of Single Page Applications (SPA) and
> "static" data.  Single pages applications written in JS are well
> understood, I am going to consider an app without routes, so truly a
> "single page" SPA.
>
> State management is a common challenge.  Where the state of the app is
> kept in a self contained store of some kind.
>
> The problem is that when you reload the app the store will reset itself
> and the variables will not remember where they were when they left off.
>
> Other languages have a solution for this called "static" variables.  Ones
> that remain constant to a degree.  But I dont think we have "static"
> variables on the web, AFAIK.
>
> A typical work around to this would be to have some kind of REST API with
> a server running to maintain that API and perhaps a bearer token to
> authenticate and allow you to save state.  That's quite an overhead.
>
> What if, instead an SPA were to have a static part.  Perhaps readers of
> this list are familiar with "data islands", a bunch of data that is stored
> in a script tag and is global.  This could be in turn used to initialize
> the app.
>
> What if you could use that global data to bootstrap your SPA and indeed
> change it, and keep it persistent.  A method to do this could be along
> Timbl's ideas of a read write web where you send a bearer token and PUT the
> data back to the page you are looking at.  But only change the data
> island.  The app itself could be a single line shim.
>
> Could this be a solution to create persistent static data for web pages
> and single pages apps, on the web?
>
> Would love to hear if there's any existing solutions to this, or any
> feedback
>
> Best
> Melvin
>

Let me add the class of storage APIs such as SessionStorage, LocalStorage,
Cookies, File System API, WebSQL etc. as mentioned here:

https://web.dev/storage-for-the-web/

The static variable idea relates more to something in the page itself (body
or head)