I don't see what's astonishing about it and I'm scratching my head asking the same question. If the answer is that you handle disconnections and reconnections the same way that the HTTP protocol does it, then what's the purpose of HTML over web sockets?
You basically end up with a half-assed, buggy, and potentially insecure reimplementation of HTTP running over web sockets running over HTTP at that point.
Are you going to do session management and identification by issuing a unique identifier as well? Is that unique identifier going to be valid in perpetuity or have a an expiry date? Is it going to be valid and secure across all sub-domains or will it be prone to cross site scripting attacks?
>I don't see what's astonishing about it and I'm scratching my head asking the same question. If the answer is that you handle disconnections and reconnections the same way that the HTTP protocol does it, then what's the purpose of HTML over web sockets?
The purpose is in the things explained well in TFA: single source of truth, no replicated state, simpler development, and so on...
Who said the purpose would/had to be in handing "the server caught fire" scenarios?
The purpose is to render your page the "old way" but having the dom updated like an SPA.
It works for certain things and not for others. So, it's not "the future of web software" like the title says, it's one additional possibility for when it makes sense.
WSs aren't a magic wand, they just allow you to do more with the same.