July Meetup: Failed Packaged Web App Schemes, async/await, and IoT PWA + AMP

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It's the 2nd Thursday of the month, time to hang out with your fellow web developers!

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Topic 1: A Brief History of Failed Packaged Web App Schemes
by Thomas Wilburn
Github (https://github.com/thomaswilburn) | @thomaswilburn (http://twitter.com/thomaswilburn)

https://secure.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/6/c/0/8/600_462147656.jpeg

abstract:: In November 2016, Google disabled Chrome Apps on all platforms except Chrome OS. This change was a while in the making, but it represents the latest failure in "packaged apps" - web apps that are downloaded and run as if they were native, built on a common or system-wide runtime. Increasingly, if you want to build an offline web app, your choices have been reduced to only two: either limited privileges running on a Service Worker, or shipping a complete browser stack via Electron.

As the maintainer of a Chrome App with (at last glance) ~200k users, I could choose to be upset about this. But I think it's more interesting to look back at the packaged app dream: what is it that gives them such a recurring appeal? Why do they fail, time and time again? And how do they fit into a new vision of the web - its capabilities, limitations, and reach?

In this talk, I'll go way back into the history of packaged apps (IE4, baby!), then work forward to the current state of the art. I'll talk about what these apps could and couldn't do, and how those features have influenced the development of browser standards. And finally, I'll speculate wildly about how Service Worker (in conjunction with Web Bluetooth, Web USB, and god-only-knows what other Web Buzzwords are in development) may be evolving both toward and away from these weird web offshoots.

bio:: Small-batch, artisanal data journalism for @seattletimes (https://github.com/seattletimes). Developer of the Caret text editor for Chrome.

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Topic 2: Exploring async/await using jQuery 2
by Josh Goldberg
Github (https://github.com/joshuakgoldberg) | @JoshuaKGoldberg (http://twitter.com/JoshuaKGoldberg) | Website (http://www.joshuakgoldberg.com/#contact)

https://secure.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/6/b/d/2/600_462147602.jpeg

abstract:: Many of us have started using the async and await keywords, and some of us have ventured into the untested waters of yield and * generators, but did you know they're actually closely related? As a case study, we'll look at how we can hack around TypeScript's generated helpers to get them to work with jQuery 2's old non-standards-compliant pseudo-promises. This talk will start on the basics of how an asynchronous function translates to a state machine, then dive into the details of how awaiting generator yields achieves async/await.

bio:: I'm Josh Goldberg, a front-end dev on Office Sway (https://sway.com/) focusing on the web client. My passion is the modern web but I also enjoy branching out to weird meta-languages (https://github.com/highschoolhacking/gls), helping bring CS education to everyone, crafting unnecessarily fancy cocktails, and remaking old GameBoy games for the web.

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Topic 3: IoT PWA + AMP (is it 😎 yet?)
by: Tara Z. Manicsic
Github (https://github.com/tzmanics) | @Tzmanics (https://twitter.com/Tzmanics?lang=en) | More (http://developer.telerik.com/author/tmanicsi/)

https://secure.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/b/3/f/0/600_462166064.jpeg

abstract:: Progressive Web Apps are not replacing native mobile applications any time soon. Don’t disregard them just yet! We can take our web applications that we already have running and make them better. Even if you can't currently take advantage of service workers, it is progressive so you won't negatively effect your app.

But wait, there’s more! One of the biggest drawbacks of using web apps on mobile is the speed (or lack there of). Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) works to provide a better user experience across many platforms.

I'd like to show you the journey I took creating my app with Node, Angular and Kendo UI to take more control of my Philips Hue lights. Then how and why I made it into a PWA and used AMP to make it more performant an engaging.

bio:: I'm Tara Z. Manicsic, a developer advocate for Progress (https://www.progress.com/) and am traveling the west coast in my 77' Apache camper (https://littlehousesbigdogs.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/img_5753.png) to join, learn and support as many JS communities as humanly possibly ;) I had a great time at your meetup in May and it was great meeting @codefoster (https://github.com/codefoster) & Wale! We talked about me speaking in July and if you still have a spot I would be very appreciative & excited 👍

my dog typing up this issue for me:

https://github.com/tzmanics/deploy-for-dogs/blob/master/images/toshi-01.gif?raw=true

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If you're interested in presenting at a future Seattle JS meetup, feel free to submit a talk (https://github.com/seattlejs/seattlejs/blob/master/request-to-speak.md).