A mobile web of apps and documents

The web is/was an agreement about a set of technologies. We're replacing those technologies. Is the result still the web?

This presentation is from OpenTech 2015: http://www.opentech.org.uk/2015/

Transcript

1. A mobile web... of apps and documents Ade Oshineye
2. What is the web? I’ve asked variations of this question in the past: https://plus.google.com/+AdeOshineye/posts/HJXQ81eVSqH
3. The web is/was agreement http://blog.whatfettle.com/2007/10/31/the_web_is_agreement/
4. The web is... • HTTP • User-agents* • HTML • URLs • View source * we say user-agents but in practice we tend to mean browsers
5. HTTP => HTTP/2 • Complex • Binary • HTTPS by default but HTTP/2 doesn’t mandate it • Multiplexed, 1 TCP connection, server-push, header compression • Hard • Simple • Text • Insecure • Inefficient • Easy to reverse-engineer
6. User agents (not just browsers) • Apps containing pages • Embedded webviews • Chrome Custom Tabs/SFSafariViewController • Mobile versus desktop browsers https://developer.chrome.com/multidevice/android/customtabs http://bryan.io/post/104845880796/we-need-a-safari-view-controller
7. HTML? Transition from docs and hypertext to web _apps_ that don’t work if you have Javascript disabled.
8. HTML as object code Javascript frameworks that dynamically alter the DOM or server-side rendering that eventually emits HTML or component systems
9. URLs • Deeplinks and custom URL schemes • Apps handling URLs and bypassing browsers
10. Is this still the web? The web absorbed gopher, WAIS, FTP and friends. Is it still the web now that it’s absorbed apps?