"The ease of HTML and server-side programming makes web development, and the use of web applications, very popular. But dogging the web application developer all this time has been one nagging problem; what happens when the customer can't get access to the Web?
"Most of the options available to engineers thus far have either been fragile, relying on the customer not to change the page or close the browser, or they required the download of some software, which is what we are trying to get away from in the first place. Google Gears provides an interesting mid-point for web applications developers. With a little extra JavaScript code, they can use a client-side cache of data to drive their applications until the user becomes connected again..."
