JavaScript at Scale

Build web applications that last, with scaling insights from the front-line of JavaScript development

About This Book

• Design and implement JavaScript application architectures that scale from a number of perspectives, such as addressability, configurability, and performance
• Understand common JavaScript scaling pitfalls and how to tackle them through practical, real-world, solutions and strategies
• Learn techniques to deliver reusable architectures that stand the test of time

Who This Book Is For

Have you ever come up against an application that felt like it was built on sand? Maybe you’ve been tasked with creating an application that needs to last longer than a year before a complete re-write? If so, JavaScript at Scale is your missing documentation for maintaining scalable architectures.

There’s no prerequisite framework knowledge required for this book, however, most concepts presented throughout are adaptations of components found in frameworks such as Backbone, AngularJS, or Ember.

All code examples are presented using ECMAScript 6 syntax, to make sure your applications are ready for next generation browsers.

What You Will Learn

• Identify and evaluate the external scaling influencers of your application
• Build out component composition in large-scale JavaScript applications
• Design for inter-component communication that scale
• Understand the importance of addressable resources in JavaScript applications, and approaches to scaling addressability
• Customize and configure components to meet scaling demands
• Ensure a highly-performant user experience, despite the size and complexity of your application
• Design a portable and testable application that’s not constrained to one environment
• Make architectural trade-offs by removing or refactoring components
• Design components that fail in a scalable way

In Detail

JavaScript applications of today look a lot different from their predecessors of just five years ago. Because of this rapid growth in sophistication and capabilities, we’ve seen an explosion in JavaScript frameworks; the JavaScript development landscape is a fragmented one. To build large-scale JavaScript applications, we need more than just tools – we need scalable architectures. We create scalable JavaScript architectures by looking at what aspects of our application need to scale and why. Only then can we apply the best patterns and components to our architecture, scaling it into the future.

JavaScript at Scale will show you how to deal with scalability from a number of perspectives; addressability, testability and component composition.

The book begins by defining ‘scale’ from a JavaScript point of view, and dives into the influencers of scale, as well as scalable component composition and communication. We will also look at how large-scale architectures need the ability to scale down, and recover from failing components, as well as scale up and manage new features or a large user base.

Filled with real-world JavaScript scaling scenarios, and code-first examples, JavaScript at Scale is your guide to building out applications that last. Each topic is covered in a way that it can be applied to your own unique scenarios; by understanding the fundamentals of a scaling issue, you’ll be able to use that knowledge to tackle even the most difficult of situations.

The code examples follow the same approach, using ECMAScript 6 syntax that can be translated to the framework of choice.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Scale from a JavaScript Perspective
Chapter 2: Influencers of Scale
Chapter 3: Component Composition
Chapter 4: Component Communication and Responsibilities
Chapter 5: Addressability and Navigation
Chapter 6: User Preferences and Defaults
Chapter 7: Load Time and Responsiveness
Chapter 8: Portability and Testing
Chapter 9: Scaling Down
Chapter 10: Coping With Failure