Progressive Web Apps with Carmen Bourlon

Switched On: A Bowdark Podcast

James and I spoke with Carmen Bourlon, a virtuoso developer that just so happens to work with us at Bowdark. Carmen created margiemap.com, which visually illustrates the relationship between income levels and library access. She also wrote Let’s Take This Offline, a book introducing developers to the concepts of service workers and progressive web apps. Buy it!

Highlights

• Progressive Web Apps (PWA) are less of a technology and more of an idea. A web app should be fast, work offline, and be native-like…and now browsers include technologies that enable that. Foremost among these technologies are the service worker and, to a lesser extent, the manifest file which gives the web app a native-like experience on devices.
• Android is especially good in this play. iOS doesn’t have all the same features as Android at this moment, but the important ones are there. You can have a home screen icon, and have service workers (since 2018-ish).
• This has great applicability to utilities companies. They are out in random spots all the time — so often without network, even without a cellular data connection. How do I get the information back to HQ? Traditional web app would demand your full connectivity before doing ANYTHING.
• The beauty of this middleware is that there’s no cost. It’s just a JavaScript file.
• There are tons of cases out there where an existing app can be converted without a full rewrite.
• Carmen would love to see the world move closer to peer-to-peer mesh networks for connectivity purposes.

Money Quotes

Carmen

PWA is less of a technology and more of an idea.

It should be mobile-friendly, and it should look as much like a native app as possible.

When you think about it, as a user you just want to press the button and move on with your day.

If you can write Fiori, you can write this.

Paul

Your web page or Fiori app doesn’t even have to know it’s offline.