I like how the author focuses on being able to link to content within an HTML application.
The use of the window.location.hash property to support linking to content within apps has been hit and miss in the last few years with web apps. Many times the back and forward buttons don't work, bookmarking a particular hash doesn't go back to that content on refresh, or there is no hash change for content at all.
Also note that many "limitations" of the web should instead be viewed as constraints.
The right constraints are a good thing, because they allow you to sacrifice flexibility in exchange for useful guarantees. In programming languages, constraints like "no shared mutable state" offer guarantees like referential transparency and thread safety. In user interface design, constraints can offer consistency and interoperability. In network architecture, constraints like "no connection state" offer guarantees that benefit horizontal scalability.
"The idea of undermining the core function of the web to achieve that is detestable."
Bullshit. Whether you like it or not "the web" has come to mean both the original application itself: a collection of hypertext documents, images, etc; as well as the greatest application deployment platform we've seen (and those applications may or may not have anything to do with hypertext)
These two things can coexist. Give me a different name and I'll start using it.
Simple: web vs net. The net is a means of connecting one computer to another. The web is interconnected content, accessible via the net.
The web, with its interconnectedness, happens to be a pretty good tool for distributing content. Applications tend to be tools for manipulating content. So we get web applications: tools for manipulating content that you can find or create on the web. The problem comes when web applications start to bite the hand that feeds, by isolating the content within the application from the rest of the web.
Thank you, Qz. I really regret that final line. It was too blunt, absolute and negatively emotive. I'd have edited it later had it not been extensively quoted by the time I woke up next day. Your expansion here gets to the heart of what I was hoping to say, and is fantastic.
The use of the window.location.hash property to support linking to content within apps has been hit and miss in the last few years with web apps. Many times the back and forward buttons don't work, bookmarking a particular hash doesn't go back to that content on refresh, or there is no hash change for content at all.