17 replies

1. Dohány Tamás 4 min later

   @zachleat Being offline is not the feature set of the webapp, IMHO. Being offline is a state of the browser.

   1. Zach Leatherman 5 min later

      @iamdtms I think the claim I’m trying to make is that being offline is a state of mind

2. Zach Leatherman 9 min later

   counterpoint:

   if you can’t handle me offline, then you don’t deserve me extremely online

   1. Stéphane Deschamps 1 hr later

      @zachleat I guess you're probably 50% tongue in cheek here, but I'd venture to ask nonetheless:
      I'd make a difference between web sites (content) and web apps; the former is for consumption on display of the page and is then usually (hopefully) cached by the browser and/or retrieved by tools like pocket, wallabag etc., the latter needs to handle actions as an offline feature to be updated when it has the chance to do so.

      1. Zach Leatherman 2 hr later

         @accessiblestef I think this one was probably 80 or 90% tongue-in-cheek. I do think offline sites are valuable but to me it’s a “code smell”-esque issue when we have to bifurcate entire properties into sites versus apps for technical reasons. I think that bifurcation should be done at the smaller component/module/design block level

         1. Stéphane Deschamps 2 hr later

            @zachleat … and I do agree :)

            1. Zach Leatherman 2 hr later

               @accessiblestef agreement high five! 🙏🏻

               1. Stéphane Deschamps 2 hr later

                  @zachleat hehe 😁

   2. EthanC 22 hr later

      @zachleat this is a laptop sticker! I’ll buy one when they’re ready.

3. Jason Lawton 27 min later

   @zachleat BH Photo (used to?) close their website on the weekends https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-h-photo-website-shuts-down-on-sabbath-fri-night-to-sat-night/848350

   1. Zach Leatherman 39 min later

      @phoopee3 wow!

4. Nelson Menezes 🇪🇺 💙💛 40 min later

   @zachleat should websites be online, even?

   1. Zach Leatherman 45 min later

      @nemzes oh wow, yeah

5. Michael Scharnagl 2 hr later

   @zachleat Just download them before going offline.

   1. Zach Leatherman 2 hr later

      @justmarkup I’m running my own on-premise archive.org—is that enough

      1. Michael Scharnagl 2 hr later

         @zachleat zachanet

6. Eric Carlisle 4 hr later

   @zachleat : Thinking on that. Would it be fair to rephrase that question to "Should we create websites to be PWAs?" 🤔
   That's a pretty easy ask when the website is a self-reliant tool (a to-do app, converter, etc...) that client-side code can do on its own.
   I think things get more complicated when we have sites w/ live data - e.g. news sites, streaming services, communication. Such services could have an offline mode, but I'm wondering the value that would offer.