Here's a paper that describes the use cases and requirements about
AtomDB. It does not include API details, although if you find this
interesting, we can proceed to that next.
I look forward to reading comments and getting feedback from the
community
I am very interested in this type of REST/CRUD offline auto-synchronization,
we are actually implementing this type of service in Dojo (should be
availabe in 1.2) that uses a CRUD API abstraction (the Dojo Data API) so
that changes can be stored in local storage as a write-back cache for
modifications being sent to the server with REST methods (POST,PUT, and
DELETE); hence, synchronization is performed automatically, no effort
required by authors. It looks AtomDB is doing something very similar (and
maybe even compatible). However, while I definitely a big advocate for this
write-back RESTful approach, here are some concerns I would have with this
approach being standardized in HTML5:
1. A fairly comprehensive solution can be implemented JavaScript with
existing and emerging (based on functionality in HTML5 or Gears)
technologies.
2. Web applications are increasingly moving away from XML towards JSON data
interchange. The Dojo REST offline synchronization module is designed
largely for JSON. It seems anachronistic to standardize on XML-based data
model, it would be starting to be outdated by the time people started using
it.
3. If think this is too early to attempt to standardize on something like
this, especially considered that we have emerging JavaScript
implementations. In general, if libraries can implement a feature, I think
there is a lot of benefit in letting JavaScript implementations break the
ground so that the standards can be advised by the successes and failures
before attempting to codify. This is especially true for very high-level
features like this.
I think greater value can be found in pushing for and advocating standards
that provide the important underlying features that can make this type of
functionality possible or more efficient to implement for JS/web developers:
1. Offline Local Storage - Obviously this is the most fundamental part.
Kudos to HTML 5 for incorporating this functionality.
2. REST communication capabilities - Of course we already have full REST
interaction capability with XHR, but in the cross-site realm, the
capabilities specified by CS-XHR will be invaluable for these type of
applications (and another reason why XDomainRequest falls far short of being
useful). The cross-site access control proposal will be very valuable
indeed.
3. JavaScript object monitoring and control - I think that another important
aspect of developing these type of applications is being able to provide
interaction based around normal JS object interaction; getters and setters
is the tool we are looking for, see the efforts in ES3.1 and ES4 to
standardize this functionality.
Thanks,
Kris
