W3C Working Group Just Killed Web SQL Database

I think that's a great news. HTML5 adds lots of complexity in the browser, and yet don't address most of the fundamental problems of HTML: security, complexity. Web SQL was another step in the wrong direction.

Local storage wont go away. I hope Web SQL will be replaced by something "better" and more straightforward, A simple key-value database would be great.

Re: W3C Working Group Just Killed Web SQL Database

#5

Post by Udo » Fri, Nov 19, 2010, 3:06 AM UTC

jchrisa wrote: post #3

This spec isn't the only game for offline storage. IndexedDB is the favored replacement: http://www.w3.org/TR/IndexedDB/ I like it because the API is much more web-like than SQL. Others have other reasons to prefer it.

It is a replacement, but I'm not really sure whether it's a good one. SQL was a nice choice because it made writing hybrid applications (with online and offline DB storage) very easy, and it was using an API that was already well known and understood. At this point it's unclear if IndexedDB is actually going anywhere, it's a prime example of a lifeless spec being prescribed from "high above". It might get adopted, maybe browser makers will force web devs to do it in the end, but SQL already has been proven more than workable in the field whereas IndexedDB has not.

Re: W3C Working Group Just Killed Web SQL Database

#6

Post by patrickaljord » Fri, Nov 19, 2010, 3:08 AM UTC

henryprecheur wrote: post #4

I think that's a great news. HTML5 adds lots of complexity in the browser, and yet don't address most of the fundamental problems of HTML: security, complexity. Web SQL was another step in the wrong direction. Local storage wont go away. I hope Web SQL will be replaced by something "better" and more straightforward, A simple key-value database would be great.

> A simple key-value database would be great.

That's exactly it:

http://www.w3.org/TR/IndexedDB/

Re: W3C Working Group Just Killed Web SQL Database

#7

Post by halo » Fri, Nov 19, 2010, 3:10 AM UTC

Probably a good thing. The most complex part of Web SQL amounted to "Whatever SQLite implements", neither Mozilla nor Microsoft supported it making the standard effectively irrelevent, and I remain thoroughly unconvinced that providing an extremely thin JavaScript API to an SQL-driven database is an elegant solution to this particular problem.

Presumably the W3C have decided to favour IndexedDB instead, which solves many of the same problems in a much more elegant, simple and well-specified fashion.

Re: W3C Working Group Just Killed Web SQL Database

#8

Post by jfb » Fri, Nov 19, 2010, 3:13 AM UTC

Why, again, was this needed? HTML5 is already looking like a security and management shitstorm; anything that makes it simpler is fine by me.

Re: W3C Working Group Just Killed Web SQL Database

#9

Post by henryprecheur » Fri, Nov 19, 2010, 3:15 AM UTC

Udo wrote: post #5

jchrisa wrote: post #3

This spec isn't the only game for offline storage. IndexedDB is the favored replacement: http://www.w3.org/TR/IndexedDB/ I like it because the API is much more web-like than SQL. Others have other reasons to prefer it.

It is a replacement, but I'm not really sure whether it's a good one. SQL was a nice choice because it made writing hybrid applications (with online and offline DB storage) very easy, and it was using an API that was already well known and understood. At this point it's unclear if IndexedDB is actually going anywhere, it's a prime example of a lifeless spec being prescribed from "high above". It might get adopted, ma…

SQL is certainly a well-known _language_, but I don't think it's very well understood by most.

Also if IndexedDB has a "lifeless" spec, it might be because there's not much to discuss. Something simple and straightforward tends to requires much less discussion and debate, than something complex.

Re: W3C Working Group Just Killed Web SQL Database

#10

Post by Groxx » Fri, Nov 19, 2010, 3:15 AM UTC

Not quite, methinks:

>This document was on the W3C Recommendation track but specification work has stopped. The specification reached an impasse: all interested implementors have used the same SQL backend (Sqlite), but we need multiple independent implementations to proceed along a standardisation path.

That notice has been up for quite a while now. They're just making it plainer that they've given up, because there's already a spec out there that they don't have control of.

Also, to perform a join in IndexedDB, you've gotta do it by hand, iterating over the results and merging data programmatically[1]. While WebDatabases have a PITA async-only API for reasons which are entirely beyond my comprehension, SQL is an incredibly capable language for interacting with a database, and has very mature and efficient implementations. Losing that would count as a massive loss to me. Why can't we have both? WebKit / Chrome is already going this route, as they have WebDatabase and recently implemented IndexedDB as well.

[1]: http://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/06/comparing-indexeddb-and-web... example 4