As the world has become more connected, functionality of web and mobile apps have become more reliant on network connectivity - hardly a sure bet. To guarantee a better, faster, continuous experience for all users, the responsibility is on developers to build apps that assume spotty and unreliable connections, and therefore retain functionality when it inevitably strikes. By developing for offline usage first, apps better fulfill their promise to work everywhere, for everyone, on any device.

This week, Gregor Martynus (@gr2m), a member of the Hoodie open source project and organizer of the Offline Camp we featured in Ep. 15, joins the New Builders to talk about the offline first movement and his role in it.

In his interview, Gregor reveals that every app Hoodie builds is designed offline first (6:55); draws parallels between offline first and the mobile first/responsive design movement of years past (10:20); explores both edge and common use cases for offline apps, from health apps in developing countries, to those that provide improved speed and user experience (13:39); explains the role of CouchDB, PouchDB and other offline first tools (21:22); and previews the Offline First community's just-announced West Coast Offline Camp, set for Nov. 4-7 at the Lodge at Oak Creek Ranch, Santa Margarita, California (26:05).

To learn more about the upcoming Offline Camp: West Coast Edition (Nov. 4-7) and for more conversations about Offline First, check out Offline Camp on Medium or join the community on Slack.

The New Builders podcast listeners can obtain special discounts for the upcoming CloudNativeDay (Toronto, Aug. 25) and CloudNativeCon (Seattle, Nov. 8-9) events:

• For a discounted CloudNativeDay pass, register here with code CND16IBMDW.
• For a discounted CloudNativeCon pass, register here with code CNC16IBMDW.

You can find new episodes of The New Builders on developerWorks TV and SoundCloud. Find out more about IBM Cloud Data Services at IBM.biz/forbuilders. Contact hosts Doug Flora and Jim Young on Twitter (@DSFlora, @JW_Young) or email ([email protected], [email protected]).

The show’s music is provided by School for Robots. Check them out at schoolforrobots.bandcamp.com!