Ramon’s Weblog

HTML5: Are Online Databases On Thier Way Out? November 15, 2010

This week I read an interesting article on HTML5 and what’s coming in regard to data management. The article refers to client-side storage, which allows the data you input to be stored to your local hardrive. This may not sound like a big deal, but this will provide a better user experience through offline interaction and speed performance.

We all like retina blazing speed when we’re browsing right? I have used AJAX to allow users to browse information on Websites without reloading pages, but it still involves connecting to a database somewhere on a server. A good use of AJAX can be found when you type something in the search bar on www.google.com. Google uses AJAX to grab similar keywords and display them as you type.

By using HTML5 and these newer storage APIs, we can have better control of how data is stored. Have you ever been filling out a form and your internet drops connection? Most of the time you lose all of that information you typed into the form, and one has to start over from the beginning. An online-offline application would be able to store all the information you entered and be able to recall it at any time.

Older storage techniques such as cookies, plug-in based storage, and browser-specific features are very limited on many fronts. They still have a place in the Web arena due to people using older browsers, but they will eventually deprecate. The new client-side storage APIs are not being developed to replace traditional databases hosted on a server. They are being put in place to make everyone’s web experience better. I’ve included some links to the articles I found below.

http://www.html5rocks.com/tutorials/offline/storage/
http://www.html5rocks.com/tutorials/offline/whats-offline/