Going offline with HTML

Thursday, 25 January 2018

The time I’ve put into developing postpress seems like it has been well spent. I have enjoyed working with the code and appreciate the experiences gained in going through the various exercises.

For example, after applying a web app manifest to the project and implementing a service worker, web development seems fun again. Not that I wasn’t ever into it, there’s just something exciting about seeing your hard work yield new and interesting results.

The project now has a fast initial render from a blank cache (using server side rendering), and the articles and portfolio components have offline capabilities, as well as near instant loading on a repeat visit to a page. The “Add To Homescreen” functionality varies between browser and OS, but I can see how vendors might utilize this feature in the future to promote PWAs that conform to a high enough standard.

Most importantly in my mind is that it is all working right now. It behaves as a web app when it should, and just like a traditional website when it counts. Combined with what seems like an eventual adoption of WebAssembly and Web Components as a standard part of the Open Web Platform, it’s a really awesome time to be developing against it, as it feels more alive than ever. 🙂