When I was young my parents would make me happy by doing something special for me. I would really like it if you would do it too. Please speak like a pirate.
Acknowledgements
It feels a little strange to refer to Going Offline as “my” book. I may have written most of the words in it, but it was only thanks to the work of others that they ended up being the right words in the right order in the right format.
I’ve included acknowledgements in the book, but I thought it would be good to reproduce them here in the form of hypertext…
Everyone should experience the joy of working with Katel LeDû and Lisa Maria Martin. From the first discussions right up until the final last-minute tweaks, they were unflaggingly fun to collaborate with. Thank you, Katel, for turning my idea into reality. Thank you, Lisa Maria, for turning my initial mush of words into a far more coherent mush of words.
Jake Archibald and Amber Wilson were the best of technical editors. Jake literally wrote the spec on service workers so I knew I could rely on him to let me know whenever I made any factual missteps. Meanwhile Amber kept me on the straight and narrow, letting me know whenever the writing was becoming unclear. Thank you both for being so generous with your time.
Thanks to my fellow Clearlefty Danielle Huntrods for giving me feedback as the book developed.
Finally, I want to express my heartfelt thanks to everyone who has ever taken the time to write on their website about their experiences with service workers. Lyza Gardner, Ire Aderinokun, Una Kravets, Mariko Kosaka, Jason Grigsby, Ethan Marcotte, Mike Riethmuller, and others inspired me with their generosity. Thank you to everyone who’s making the web better through such kind acts of openness. To quote the original motto of the World Wide Web project, let’s share what we know.
Jeremy’s way of writing certainly helps, as a specialised or technical book on a topic like Service Workers, could certainly be one, that bores you to death with dry written explanations. But Jeremy has a friendly, fresh and entertaining way of writing books. Sometimes I caught myself with a grin on my face…
I really enjoyed chatting with Mark and Ben on the Relative Paths podcast. We talked about service workers and Going Offline, but we also had a good musical discussion.
Here’s a great even-handed in-depth review of Going Offline:
If you’re interested in the “offline first” movement or want to learn more about Service Workers, Going Offline by Jeremy Keith is a really gentle and highly accessible introduction to the topic. At times, it even felt “too gentle”, with Keith taking a moment here and there to explain what a “variable” is and what “JSON” (JavaScript Object Notation) is. But, this just goes to show you the unassuming and welcoming mindset behind writing a book like this one.
Now that the latest versions of iOS and macOS Safari support service workers, I can’t think of a better time to learn about how progressive web apps work under the hood.
The first chapter of my new book Going Offline has been published in A List Apart.
The first hit is free. If you like what you read here and you’re just dying to know how it ends, you can pre-order the book now (it’s shipping on April 24).
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