Building Isomorphic JavaScript Apps

Chapter 4. Going Beyond Server-Side Rendering

Maxime Najim

Applications come in different shapes and sizes. In the introductory chapters we focused mainly on single-page applications that can also be rendered on the server. The server renders the initial page to improve perceived page load time and for search engine optimization (SEO). That discussion was focused around the classic application architecture, in which the client initiates a REST call and is routed to one of the stateless backend servers, which in turn queries the database and returns the data to the client (Figure 4-1).

Figure 4-1. Classic web application architecture

This approach is great for classic ecommerce web applications. But there is another class of applications, often referred to as “real-time” applications. In fact, we can say that there are two classes of isomorphic JavaScript applications: single-page apps that can be server-rendered and apps that use isomorphic JavaScript for real-time, offline, and data-syncing capabilities.

Note

Matt Debergalis has described real-time applications as a natural evolutionary step in the rich history of application architectures. He believes that changes in application architecture are driven by new eras of cheap CPUs, the Internet, and the emergence of mobile. Each of these changes resulted in the development of new application architectures. However, even though ...