Seek knowledge even if the journey took all the way to China. (Proverb)

This morning I stumbled upon a video that mentions one of the famous traveler, Ibn Battuta. And the deeper I dig, the more fascinated I am by his journey. It is one thing to visit a place and buy merchandises before return to home, but another thing to travel intentionally to explore foreign lands in the pursuit of knowledge then go back home 24 years later.

The most inspiring about his life for me is that the fact he was an outlandishly learned scholar who managed to parlay his knowledge of Islam into the most magnificent road trip in history. He went to Mali to Constantinople to India to Russia to Indonesia; he was probably the most well-traveled person before the invention of the steam engine. And everywhere he went he was treated like a king, and then he went home, and he wrote a really famous book called, “The Rihla” that people still read today.

Yap, it looks like he had the most awesome life ever.

Malam itu Coco baru pulang kerja, dia sedang ada di kereta Commuter Line dari Jakarta ke Depok. Sambil mengisi waktu, dia biasanya bermain HP – ya, Coco adalah anak muda mainstream kekinian.

Tapi disaat kereta melewati beberapa daerah, koneksi internet di HP-nya seringkali tidak stabil, dan beberapa kali Coco gagal meload website yang sedang dia akses. Setiap kali itu terjadi, Coco harus me-reload halaman webnya dan berharap bisa te-render dengan baik. Ini seringkali membuat Coco kesal, dan akhirnya tidak jadi mengakses website yang dituju.

Situasi Coco ini sepertinya cukup familiar dialami banyak orang, terutama bagi yang tinggal di daerah koneksi internet yang relatif lambat. Sayang sekali, disaat semakin banyak orang bisa membeli mobile device, saat mereka semakin nyaman menggunakan mobile web karena kepraktisannya, hambatan ini membuat membuat kesal bukan hanya pengguna tapi juga publisher dalam hal ini para owner website.

Lalu kemudian, inisiatif untuk membuat teknologi yang mencoba menjadi solusi pun muncul, namanya Progressive Web App (PWA).