Categories
Architecture JavaScript Web Development

Microservices for Frontend: Is This a Thing?

Microservices are the hot backend architecture: small, independent services instead of monolithic applications. The benefits—independent deployment, technology diversity, team autonomy—are compelling. But most SPAs remain monolithic. We're distributing the backend while keeping the frontend as one large application. Should frontend be microservices too?

The Microservices Backend Pattern

Categories
JavaScript Tooling Web Development

npm: The Accidental Frontend Package Manager

Something interesting is happening: developers are abandoning Bower and installing frontend dependencies with npm. This seems wrong—npm was designed for Node.js, and browser code has different constraints. But the trend is real, and understanding why reveals tensions in how we think about frontend packaging.

The Two Package Managers Problem

Categories
JavaScript Tooling Web Development

Bower and the Frontend Package Management Problem

Twitter released Bower six months ago, and it's gaining traction for managing frontend dependencies. But using it raises an interesting question: why does frontend need a separate package manager? The answer reveals fundamental differences in how we think about server-side versus client-side code.

The npm Model Doesn't Work for Browsers