High Performance Single Page Web Applications

by Chris Love

The world needs a new, mobile first approach to web development that places a high priority on performance, touch and cross-device functionality. Classic web development techniques need to be abandoned and replaced with new attitudes and architecture. Single Page Web Applications are an emerging trend, a deviation from traditional web development. The mass adoption of mobile, touch enabled devices combined with the pressure created by native application popularity means the classic web site is an artifact of the past.High Performance Single Page Web Applications breaks through developers' confusion and preconceptions about building a modern SPA web application. The book uses a demonstration application based on popular mobile movie applications. The public Rotten Tomatoes API is consumed to dynamically build content on demand. localStorage is used to manage data and markup to improve application load times and responsiveness. Responsive design techniques drive optimal experiences for devices of all sizes. The concept of a modular, extensible JavaScript object model is explained and demonstrated using the application's code. The author utilizes several small JavaScript libraries and patterns to build the application. Many of the libraries he authored, including the SPA and backpack libraries. The libraries are designed from several years of single page application and mobile first web development. They are small, compact and easy to understand.The book was written to challenge some preconceived notions about HTML5 and JavaScript architectures. After reading the book and examining the source code you should have more confidence to build modern web applications that work across all devices, are easy to maintain and extend.

399 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 11, 2014

Reviews

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book for those that have learned the basics of JavaScript and are ready for the deep dive with vanilla JavaScript.

I disagree with the author's general premise that frameworks aren't good. After reading this book I understand why frameworks are wanted. Also, not all frameworks all really big. You can get micro frameworks that make it easy to create apps. And anytime you need more performance then you can go to vanilla JavaScript. But most apps don't need high performance and with a micro framework you can still have a relatively small foot print for single page apps.