I don't understand what need the appcache system fulfils. Within HTTP there is already a reasonable caching system. True, as mentioned in the post, the browser may occasionally clear the cache or elements of it; but that would be an argument for adding something like a `persist` flag to the `Cache-Control` header which would serve the exact same purpose, in addition to being backwards compatible with older browsers.
The whole point is to enable the browser to be a full proper app platform- that includes enabling web apps to work OFFLINE. The behaviour of a browser without app cache is to fail to display content even if it is cached if your connection happens to be offline. the html5 app cache addresses that- and is the "standardised" alternative to google gears' local "offline" web server.
It seems to me that the point of appcache is to group the files that should be persisted into groups (not necessarily disjoint) that belong to different apps. This way, if the persisted files take up a lot of space, one can attribute that space to concrete apps.
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I don't understand what need the appcache system fulfils. Within HTTP there is already a reasonable caching system. True, as mentioned in the post, the browser may occasionally clear the cache or elements of it; but that would be an argument for adding something like a `persist` flag to the `Cache-Control` header which would serve the exact same purpose, in addition to being backwards compatible with older browsers.
The whole point is to enable the browser to be a full proper app platform- that includes enabling web apps to work OFFLINE. The behaviour of a browser without app cache is to fail to display content even if it is cached if your connection happens to be offline. the html5 app cache addresses that- and is the "standardised" alternative to google gears' local "offline" web server.
It seems to me that the point of appcache is to group the files that should be persisted into groups (not necessarily disjoint) that belong to different apps. This way, if the persisted files take up a lot of space, one can attribute that space to concrete apps.