From 1a26f68e09b30c5c4ed68d3e67814fa307a9f97a Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "Collin J. Doering" Date: Sat, 4 Nov 2017 22:27:49 -0400 Subject: [PATCH] Add published but uncommited Site updates post Signed-off-by: Collin J. Doering --- posts/site-updates.markdown | 48 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 48 insertions(+) create mode 100644 posts/site-updates.markdown diff --git a/posts/site-updates.markdown b/posts/site-updates.markdown new file mode 100644 index 0000000..34017d6 --- /dev/null +++ b/posts/site-updates.markdown @@ -0,0 +1,48 @@ +--- +title: Site Updates and AppCache depreciation +author: Collin J. Doering +date: Feb 08, 2016 +description: Stabilized site and removed javascript requirement +tags: general +--- + +I am happy to announce that this site is nearly complete. There are a few additional features I +still intend to add, mainly to do with offline viewing and user experience, but all-in-all I am +quiet happy with it. Now I intend to mainly focus on populating this blog with more content and +writing a little more frequently. Also for those of you wondering if pagination is working, it +is, completely! Both on the tag pages and the blog page, however currently I don't have enough +articles to trigger multiple pages (greater then 6 is required), so the pagination +next/prev/first/last page links at the bottom of the page are plain text. I at some point may +address this but it will only really be an issue for another few articles and could be resolved +quiet easily in the case of 6 or less articles. + +Recently, I came across an article saying to my dismay that the Application Cache API is being +depreciated in firefox. I say to my dismay because this site uses Application Cache so it can +be viewed offline, which means I'm going to have to refactor my site for Application Caches +replacement. Some would say offline viewing is overkill for a blog but initially I attempted it +as a learning exercise, but am pretty happy with the end result of a pretty smooth offline +viewing experience. + + + +Needless to say, while setting up Application Cache, it seemed like it wasn't a very flexible +technology. I was able to make it do what I wanted (for the most part) but things like +selectively caching an article wasn't doable with Application Cache. I still intend on offering +this feature, however I was going to implement it via offline storage as it couldn't be done +dynamically on the client side with Application Cache. There is a better alternative though, +ServiceWorkers which replaces Application Cache provides the flexibility to provide just this; +dynamic caching based on whatever conditions the developer sees fit. In a nut shell, +ServiceWorkers act as a proxy running in a Worker (thus in its own thread) between your web +application and the browser. + +Anyways, as I read through the documentation for ServiceWorkers I'll be sure to update my blog +to use them in place of Application Cache. I'm looking forward to experimenting with this new +web spec, and thinks it hold great promise for the future. + +As a closing note: one thing that worries me about web applications becoming able to deliver +similar experiences to classical native programs is that of freedom and availability of source +code. Of course, this is why the [AGPL](http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html) exists, but +none-the-less, I fear the day when the majority of users simply use a web browser to do their +computing. It will leave them locked to a particular service without the ability to even +reverse engineer the application because all communication can take place via an encrypted +connection.