This chapter covers:
- Introduction to modern web applications
- Choosing Rust for web applications
- Visualizing the example application
Connected web applications that work over the internet form the backbone of modern businesses and human digital lives.
As individuals, we use consumer-focused apps for social networking & communications, for e-commerce purchases, for travel bookings, to make payments, manage finances, for education, and to entertain ourselves, just to name a few. Likewise, business-focused applications are used across practically all functions and processes in an enterprise.
Today’s web applications are mind-bogglingly complex distributed systems. Users of these applications interact through web or mobile front-end user interfaces. But the users rarely see the complex environment consisting of backend services and software infrastructure components that respond to user requests made through sleek app user interfaces. Popular consumer apps have thousands of backend services and servers distributed in data centers across the globe. Each feature of an app may be executed on a different server, implemented with a different design choice, written in a different programming language and located in a different geographical location. The seamless in-app user experience makes things look so easy. But developing modern web applications is anything but easy.