Sessions at Web Directions Unplugged about Web Apps

Thursday 12th May 2011

• Native v hybrid v web

  by Brian Fling

  It’s an exciting time to be working on the web. With the explosion of new platforms and form factors, three clear strategies for application development have emerged.

  • native apps, written in languages like Objective-C, Java and C++
  • hybrid apps, written in HTML5 and web technologies, packaged and deployed to various platforms using solutions like PhoneGap and AIR
  • web apps, running solely in the browser

  Each has its strengths and weaknesses.
  Each has its strong adherents.
  Each has its place, depending on the project.

  In this session, Brian Fling brings together a number of deeply knowledgeable, experienced developers to pragmatically consider these different approaches, their strengths and weaknesses, and their appropriate use cases, to help you decide which tactic is appropriate for any project.

  Cut through the ideology, and hear from people who really know what they are talking about in this summit style session to end day one.

  • HTML5
  • Mobile
  • Native Apps
  • PhoneGap
  • Web Apps

  At 4:05pm to 5:05pm, Thursday 12th May

  Coverage slide deck video slide deck

Friday 13th May 2011

• The best of both worlds — Offline Web Apps with HTML5

  by David Orchard

  There’s an old expression, that there are only 2 hard problems in computing: naming, cache invalidation and off-by-one errors. Building offline web apps is all about those hard problems. There are some different ways of storing stuff — such as html5 caching, html5 storage, sqllite, and even native stores such as contacts and calendars — and we’ll sing their praises. But the really hard problems are knowing what to store, whether the stuff is still good or needs refreshing, how much to store, how to resolve conflicts between the client and server, how to integrate with data-specific stores, all in a bewildering cacophony of network and storage limited devices. We’ll spend the bulk of our time on these hard problems, which is probably more useful than api description and sample code.

  • HTML5
  • Offline
  • Web Apps

  At 11:30am to 12:25pm, Friday 13th May