> it's basically impossible to make an app that can store its data locally, instead of on some web server.
No, that is trivial to do: just make an actual damn application.
What the author is complaining about is that it’s impossible to make a text document that pretends to be an application that stores data in ways they were never intended to be stored.
I'm sorry but I find this argument utterly tedious.
A Swift file is no less a "text document" than a JavaScript file is. There are APIs available in the browser to store data offline, so I have no idea what "in ways they were never intended to be stored" means here.
A webapp is "an actual damn application". Can we just dispense with the repetitive arguments about this every time anyone so much as mentions adding interactivity to a web page?
No, that is trivial to do: just make an actual damn application.
So trivial that all it needs is learning a completely new skill set and tools, signing up for a gated distribution mechanism that can kill your application on a whim if you violate any of the rules over which you have no control, and then giving a huge cut of your revenues to the rent-seeking platform owner?
The web has been more than just text documents since around the turn of the millennium. It's probably about time we stopped ignoring 20 years of very popular evolution and pretending that what might have been "intended" before a lot of people reading this comment were born should still guide what we build today.
> What the author is complaining about is that it’s impossible to make a text document that pretends to be an application that stores data in ways they were never intended to be stored.
You must've been not following things. The web platform is an application platform and has developed to that end, for many years.
Progressive Web Apps are applications based on standard Web APIs that are designed with the intent to enable offline-capable applications with persistent offline storage of significant amounts of data.
> The web platform is an application platform and has developed to that end, for many years.
No it’s not. Using it like that is a lasagna of dirty hacks. The web is for structured text with hyperlinks, everything else is bullshit that doesn’t belong on the web.
> No it’s not. Using it like that is a lasagna of dirty hacks.
First it's a bunch of dirty hacks. Then it's an informal convention. Then it's a standard. Lots of technology evolved that way.
All the stakeholders driving the web standards forward are focusing on making it a more powerful application platform.
> The web is for structured text with hyperlinks, everything else is bullshit that doesn’t belong on the web.
That's your personal opinion on what the web platform should be, not what it is. Of course it's a crappy platform in many respects. Of course a lot of people don't like the way it goes. It doesn't matter.
No, that is trivial to do: just make an actual damn application.
What the author is complaining about is that it’s impossible to make a text document that pretends to be an application that stores data in ways they were never intended to be stored.