Foreword

In 1991, Tim Berners-Lee launched the world’s first website, which ran on a program he named the WorldWideWeb. Two years later, he would release the source code for the WorldWideWeb and the world itself would never be the same. You can still see that first web page at info.cern.ch.

Since 1991, the web has experienced unprecedented popularity. At 24 years old, it’s still the most widely used technology in the world. It runs on all operating systems, all hardware platforms, and nearly all mobile devices in some form or fashion. The program that makes this all possible is the almighty web browser.

Traditionally, web browsers were simply middlemen. They would fetch data from a server, display it, take data back to the server, and get more data to display. But today’s web browsers, while still true to the original principals of the web, are far more complex than anyone could ever have imagined back then.

The humble browser has graduated into a full-fledged runtime for applications of all sizes. These are applications that don’t have to be installed, can be accessed from anywhere, and run everywhere. This is the holy grail for developers. Being able to deploy one codebase that runs everywhere and is always up to date is an opportunity too good to pass up. No other technology can make this boast.