[whatwg] Web Storage: apparent contradiction in spec

[Jens Alfke]

On Aug 26, 2009, at 3:10 AM, Anne van Kesteren wrote:

> Indeed. It would be nice to be able to write simple applications  
> that do not require the cloud at all and basically consist of a set  
> of static documents distributed over HTTP.

TiddlyWiki is a perfect example of this, if anyone's looking for real- 
world examples. It's a single-user local wiki distributed as an HTML  
file. It's always had the problem of how to save changes persistently  
— the basic mechanism is really awkward, requiring you to manually  
export a new HTML file including the content as embedded JS data. It  
would be great for it to use local storage (and maybe they've added  
that since I last looked at it.)

Needless to say, some GTD acolytes accumulate tons of crucial personal  
data in local wikis like this (or VoodooPad) and would be furious if  
the browser deleted it without their consent.

I think there are lots of other use cases for web apps that would use  
local storage without ever syncing it to the cloud, simply because  
it's vastly easier to do. I can write such an app and host it on my  
cheapo personal website without having to worry about user account  
registration, storage and bandwidth costs for an unknown number of  
documents, tech support or legal liability if my server loses people's  
data, privacy requirements, DMCA takedown requests, etc. etc.

—Jens

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