Isomorphic JavaScript Applications — the Future of the Web?

One of the best known mottos around the web is Java’s Write once, run everywhere. But does this motto apply to Java only? Can we use it to describe JavaScript too? The answer is Yes.

In this article, I’ll introduce you to the concept of isomorphic JavaScript applications, describing what they are and pointing to resources that help you develop this kind of application.

How We Arrived Here

Many years ago, the web was a bunch of static pages made with HTML and CSS without much interactivity. Each user action required the server to create and serve a complete page. Thanks to JavaScript, developers started to create nice effects, but it was with the advent of Ajax that a revolution started. Web developers began to write code that could communicate with the server to send and receive data without the need to reload the page.

As the years have passed, the responsibilities of the client-side code have grown a lot, resulting in a new type of application known as the single-page application (SPA). In an SPA, all the necessary assets are retrieved with a single page load, or dynamically loaded and added to the page as necessary. Some examples of SPAs are Gmail and the StackeStackEditdit editor.

SPAs allow for better interactivity, because almost all their operations are executed on the client, keeping communications with the server to a bare minimum. Unfortunately, they also have some major problems. Let’s discuss some of them.

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by Aurelio De Rosa via SitePoint