Development

See also: Web Apps listed in Trends

How a web app downloaded 2GB of data offline without asking permission – Jef Claes, Mar 2012

I have been experimenting with the HTML5 offline application cache some more over the last few days, doing boundary tests in an attempt to learn more about browser behaviour in edge cases …As a user, I had no idea that the website I’m browsing is downloading a suspicious amount of data in the background. Something else I noticed, is that other sites now fail to commit anything to the application cache due to the browser-wide quota being exceeded. I’m pretty sure this ‘first browsed, first reserved’ approach will be a source of frustration in the future

How the FT shifted from native apps to web apps – Steve Pinches talk by Martin Belam

(FT removed their app from Apple’s app store due to subscription policy, replaced it with HTML5 web app). Key learnings:

  • Storing data offline is tricky – logged bugs as discovered device level problems.
  • Testing web apps is very difficult – there is no closed ecosystem and new devices arrive on the market all the time.
  • Web apps are not easy to build, but they do make future cross-platform development easier. Though still not easy.
  • The FT are having to build ad functionality themselves – the ad ecosystem isn’t web app ready
  • “A focused, small team with a common vision but a collegiate approach works very well”
  • Design has to work with the technology and the team developing it, not against it. Don’t hand over flat PDFs.

(Last point should apply to all systems that involve technology and design. Too often design is technology-agnostic causing project delays due to debate about what can and can’t be achieved within budget and support constraints)

Software Engineering: Dead? – Jeff Attwood, Coding Horror, Jul 2009

“I’m gradually coming to the conclusion that software engineering is an idea whose time has come and gone. Software development is and always will be somewhat experimental. The actual software construction isn’t necessarily experimental, but its conception is. And this is where our focus ought to be. It’s where our focus always ought to have been.” Tom DeMarco.

I can publicly acknowledge what I’ve slowly, gradually realized over the last 5 to 10 years of my career as a software developer: what we do is craftsmanship, not engineering.

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