posts/2023-01-03-website-vs-application-vs-web-app

[utterances-bot]

Website vs. Application vs. Web App

Jen Simmons recently posted an interesting question about website thinking for 2023, and I waded into the conversation and realized I have strong opinions as a mediocre white guy in tech. So I’m gonna go into my headspace about these topics.

https://alex.party/posts/2023-01-03-website-vs-application-vs-web-app

[frumbert]

I call my thing a disconnected web app. Because it runs on the browser, and outputs on the browser. It's one-way. Sure, the server gives you the initial files, and drip feeds you the extra libraries and resources as they are requested, but the server is nothing more than a file store. Do a file upload? It's in the browser. Record from your webcam into a frame in a powerpoint file, convert the video result to web friendly formats? In the browser. There's no "other" party; no social network; no reason for the server to care about anything going on at the browser. Heck, it doesn't even do analytics.