Single-Page Web Applications

In Single Page Web Applications you’ll learn to build modern browser-based apps that take advantage of stronger client platforms and more predictable bandwidth. You’ll learn the SPA design approach, and then start exploring new techniques like structured JavaScript and responsive design. And you’ll learn how to capitalize on trends like server-side JavaScript and NoSQL data stores, as well as new frameworks that make JavaScript more manageable and testable as a first-class language.

About this Book

If your website is a jumpy collection of linked pages, you are behind. Single page web applications are your next step: pushing UI rendering and business logic to the browser and communicating with the server only to synchronize data, they provide a smooth user experience, much like a native application. But, SPAs can be hard to develop, manage, and test.

Single Page Web Applications shows how your team can easily design, test, maintain, and extend sophisticated SPAs using JavaScript end-to-end, without getting locked into a framework. Along the way, you’ll develop advanced HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript skills, and use JavaScript as the language of the web server and the database.

This book assumes basic knowledge of web development. No experience with SPAs is required.

What’s Inside

• Design, build, and test a full-stack SPA
• Best-in-class tools like jQuery, TaffyDB, Node.js, and MongoDB
• Real-time web with web sockets and Socket.IO
• Touch controls for tablets and smartphones
• Common SPA design mistakes

About the Authors

The authors are architects and engineering managers. Michael Mikowski has worked on many commercial SPAs and a platform that processes over 100 billion requests per year. Josh Powell has built some of the most heavily trafficked sites on the web.

Table of Contents

PART 1: INTRODUCING SPAS

1.Our first single page application

2.Reintroducing JavaScript

PART 2: SPA CLIENT

3.Develop the Shell

4.Add feature modules

5.Build the Model

6.Finish the Model and Data modules

PART 3: THE SPA SERVER

7.The web server

8.The server database

9.Readying our SPA for production

About the Author

Michael Mikowski is a UI architect and product designer. He created his first SPA out of necessity for the US and European AMD shopping sites in 2007 and has been hooked on SPA’s ever since. He is currently working on his fifth commercial SPA, this time for desktop and multi-touch mobile devices using jQuery, SVG, Backbone, Node.js, MongoDB, and a number of his own jQuery plugins. Previously he was a back-end development manager responsible for high volume, high performance clusters serving billions of advertising impressions per week. He has developed notable applications for 3D rendering, music composition and numerical analysis; and is an award-winning and degreed Industrial Designer.

Josh Powell has created high performance, interactive sites for entertainment giants like Harry Potter, 007, Lord of the Rings, Batman, The Godfather, and The Simpsons. He also did a tour building “Smart Grid” projects at utility companies like PG&E.