Progressing the web

Frances has written up some of the history behind her minting of the term ��progressive web app��. She points out that accuracy is secondary to marketing:

I keep seeing folks (developers) getting all smart-ass saying they should have been PW ��Sites�� not ��Apps�� but I just want to put on the record that it doesn��t matter. The name isn��t for you and worrying about it is distraction from just building things that work better for everyone. The name is for your boss, for your investor, for your marketeer.

Personally, I think ��progressive web app�� is a pretty good phrase��two out of three words in it are spot on. I really like the word ��progressive”, with its echoes of progressive enhancement. I really, really like the word ��web”. But, yeah, I��m one of those smart-asses who points out that the ��app” part isn��t great.

That��s not just me being a pedant (or, it��s not only me being a pedant). I��ve seen people who were genuinely put off investigating the technologies behind progressive web apps because of the naming.

The name is one of the reasons I didn��t look into PWAs 6 months ago. Can we change the name itself? ��
�� Julian Gaviria (@juliangav) March 24, 2017

Here��s an article with the spot-on title Progressive Web Apps �� The Next Step In Responsive Web Design:

Late last week, Smashing Magazine, one of the largest and most influential online publications for web design, posted on Facebook that their website was ��now running as a Progressive Web App.��

Honestly, I didn��t think much of it. Progressive Web Apps are for the hardcore web application developers creating the next online cloud-based Photoshop (complicated stuff), right? I scrolled on and went about my day.

And here��s someone feeling the cognitive dissonance of turning a website into a progressive web app, even though that��s exactly the right thing to do:

My personal website is a collection of static HTML files and is also a progressive web app. Transforming it into a progressive web app felt a bit weird in the beginning because it��s not an actual application but I wanted to be one of the cool kids, and PWAs still offer a lot of additional improvements.

Still, it could well be that these are the exceptions and that most people are not being discouraged by the ��app” phrasing. I certainly hope that there aren��t more people out there thinking ��well, progressive web apps aren��t for me because I��m building a content site.��

In short, the name might not be perfect but it��s pretty damn good.

What I find more troubling is the grouping of unrelated technologies under the ��progressive web app�� banner. If Google devrel events were anything to go by, you��d be forgiven for thinking that progressive web apps have something to do with AMP or Polymer (they don��t). One of the great things about progressive web apps is that they are agnostic to tech stacks. Still, I totally get why Googlers would want to use the opportunity to point to their other projects.

Far more troubling is the entanglement of the term ��progressive web app�� with the architectural choice of ��single page app��. I��m not the only one who��s worried about this.

I��ve seen too many devs assume PWA is a subset of SPA. We need to improve our messaging
�� Jake Archibald (@jaffathecake) June 4, 2016

Here��s the most egregious example: an article on Hacker Noon called Before You Build a PWA You Need a SPA.

No! Not true! Literally any website can be a progressive web app:

switch over to HTTPS,
add a JSON manifest file with your metacrap, and
add a service worker.

That last step can be tricky if you��re new to service workers, but it��s not unsurmountable. It��s certainly a lot easier than completely rearchitecting your existing website to be a JavaScript-driven single page app.

Alas, I think that many of the initial poster-children for progressive web apps gave the impression that you had to make a completely separate app/site at a different URL. It was like a return to the bad old days of m. sites for mobile. The Washington Post��s progressive web app (currently offline) went so far as to turn away traffic from the ��wrong” browsers. This is despite the fact that the very first item in the list of criteria for a progressive web app is:

Responsive: to fit any form factor

Now, I absolutely understand that the immediate priority is to demonstrate that a progressive web app can compete with a native mobile app in terms of features (and trounce it in terms of installation friction). But I��m worried that in our rush to match what native apps can do, we may end up ditching the very features that make the web a universally-accessible medium. Killing URLs simply because native apps don��t have URLs is a classic example of throwing the baby out with the bath water:

Up until now I��ve been a big fan of Progressive Web Apps. I understood them to be combining the best of the web (responsiveness, linkability) with the best of native (installable, connectivity independent). Now I see that balance shifting towards the native end of the scale at the expense of the web��s best features. I��d love to see that balance restored with a little less emphasis on the ��Apps�� and a little more emphasis on the ��Web.�� Now that would be progressive.

If the goal of the web is just to compete with native, then we��ve set the bar way too low.

So if you��ve been wary of investing the technologies behind progressive web apps because you��re ��just” building a website, please try to see past the name. As Frances says:

It��s marketing, just like HTML5 had very little to do with actual HTML. PWAs are just a bunch of technologies with a zingy-new brandname.

Literally any website can��and should��be a progressive web app. Don��t let anyone tell you otherwise.

I was at an event last year where I heard Chris Heilmann say that you shouldn��t make your blog into a progressive web app. I couldn��t believe what I was hearing. He repeats that message in this video chat:

When somebody, for example, turns their blog into a PWA, I don��t see the point. I don��t want to have that icon on my homepage. This doesn��t make any sense to me.

Excuse me!? Just because you don��t want to have someone��s icon on your home screen, that person shouldn��t be using state-of-the-art technologies!? Excuse my French, but Fuck. That. Shit!

Our imaginations have become so limited by what native mobile apps currently do that we can��t see past merely imitating the status quo like a sad cargo cult.

I don��t want the web to equal native; I want the web to surpass it. I, for one, would prefer a reality where my home screen isn��t filled with the icons of startups and companies that have fulfilled the criteria of the gatekeepers. But a home screen filled with the faces of people who didn��t have to ask anyone��s permission to publish? That��s what I want!

Like Frances says: