I just spent the past couple of days wiring up a persistent data store in the mobile web app I am developing. I want to move the app with Phonegap to iOS and I realized that persistent data storage was a must. Even not being a native app, giving users of mobile web apps the ability to function when they have no or poor internet connectivity is a must if you are going to achieve a level of customer satisfaction that approaches that of a true native app.

So I didn’t read between the lines and I spent the past couple of days learning how to implement SQLite for the web. SQL is a comfort zone me and many of us who’ve been in this tech game for a while. The data I am working with maps well to tables and is easily manipulated with joins. I got my prototype working and when I stumbled across the raging debate over WebSQL vs IndexedDB.

NEWS FLASH: Web SQL was Deprecated in Nov of 2010. So I’ll admit I’ve been hiding under a rock but this debate continues to rage. I’ve been glued to the back and forth happening at HTML5ROCKS and this great thread by Kevin Dangoor on Google+.

For starters, html5rocks is where I found the most useful tutorial on developing a simple web database. They followed that up with a great post by Ido Green on how to migrate from Web SQL to IndexedDB. But man this move by the W3C just isn’t sitting well with people. I guess if I was a 20-year DBA and staring at the NoSQL tidal wave, I’d be nervous too. Personally I am just getting back into development after a long hiatus and find the rock throwing amazing but counterproductive.