Part 2. The SPA client

An SPA client provides much more than a traditional website user interface (UI). Though some say that SPA clients can be as responsive as desktop applications, it’s more accurate to say that well-written SPA clients are desktop applications.

Like desktop applications, SPA clients differ substantially from traditional web pages. When we replace a traditional website with an SPA, the entire software stack changes—from the database server through the HTML templating. Companies that have had the vision to successfully transition from traditional websites to SPAs have understood that the old practices and structures must change. They’ve refocused engineering talent, discipline, and testing on the client. The server remains important, but it’s focused on providing JSON data services.

So let’s forget everything we know about traditional website client development. All right, not everything—it’s still good to know JavaScript, HTML5, CSS3, SVG, CORS, and a bunch of other acronyms. But we need to remember as we proceed through these chapters that we’ll be building a desktop application, not a traditional website. In part 2 we learn how to: