What is a PWA?
Progressive web app - https://developers.google.com/web/progressive-web-apps/
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Tiny PWAs and why I keep building them
31–40 of 178 posts
Re: Tiny PWAs and why I keep building them
#32> “surely there is a app for that!” A quick look leads to speedometer apps with ads and 30MB download weight, and simple screen light that also have ads that weight in at 5MB. I’m finally groking what rms has been banging on about for so long. It is completely unacceptable that we are running software that does this to the user. Users need to be empowered and able to run code that they can control.
Exactly. If more people's reaction, instead of searching an app store for a privacy respecting screen light, was to sit down and write:
let on true;
Re: Tiny PWAs and why I keep building them
#33> “surely there is a app for that!” A quick look leads to speedometer apps with ads and 30MB download weight, and simple screen light that also have ads that weight in at 5MB. I’m finally groking what rms has been banging on about for so long. It is completely unacceptable that we are running software that does this to the user. Users need to be empowered and able to run code that they can control.
I started building something I like to call "Linux on the Web" (LOTW) 6+ years ago in order to start working on this problem (it's live on the web right now). Just like with node.js applications, the smallest legal file size for an app running inside of LOTW is precisely 0 bytes. I've tried to shave that down even more, but I seem to be running into physical limits :)
Can you share a link? People reading your comment have no way to know how to learn more about your project, or even whether it is relevant to the topic at hand.
The most relevant result I could find for "linux on the web" was https://linuxontheweb.appspot.com/ which doesn't seem to be relevant at all.
Re: Tiny PWAs and why I keep building them
#34> A quick look leads to speedometer apps with ads and 30MB download weight, and simple screen light that also have ads that weight in at 5MB. I don’t see why this means PWAs are better than apps. There’s nothing stopping you from writing an app instead of a PWA in this case.
Less development setup required (you can make a PWA with literally just a text editor and a place to upload files), very easy to distribute, free to distribute, cross-platform (although here progress is still being made).
Lower barrier means it's easier to just publish something small you made for yourself, since it can be free without consideration to loosing money from it.
Re: Tiny PWAs and why I keep building them
#35Re: Tiny PWAs and why I keep building them
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#37Re: Tiny PWAs and why I keep building them
#38> A quick look leads to speedometer apps with ads and 30MB download weight, and simple screen light that also have ads that weight in at 5MB. I don’t see why this means PWAs are better than apps. There’s nothing stopping you from writing an app instead of a PWA in this case.
Yes, but that will only work on one platform.
Re: Tiny PWAs and why I keep building them
#39I'm amazed there's a jurisdiction in a developed nation where driving a car with dead dashboard is legal.
Re: Tiny PWAs and why I keep building them
#40> A quick look leads to speedometer apps with ads and 30MB download weight, and simple screen light that also have ads that weight in at 5MB. I don’t see why this means PWAs are better than apps. There’s nothing stopping you from writing an app instead of a PWA in this case.
I've argued both sides of this for a long time. The short argument for web apps are that you have real control over them, which means any platform, any time. An iOS app from five years ago is useless without recompilation with the current toolchain, and even then it only works on iOS. A web page from 1994 still renders unmodified today, on any platform, and will for the foreseeable future.