What is Single Page Application? Learn more about Single Page Application

When you learn about technologies like React.js , Blazor, Angular or Vue.js, you will have heard of Single Page Application as a "genuine" web application with the ability to maximize the user experience. Google, Facebook and many other "big guys" use. So, what is Single Page Application? Let's dig deeper with Tino Group!

Learn about Single Page Application
What is Single Page Application?
Single Page Application ( also known by its abbreviated name: SPA ), is a type of web application programming that is very mobile-friendly and you will not need to reload the page during use right away. Browser.

In fact, you have experienced Single Page Application every day! Do you believe? If you are using Facebook , Youtube, Google Search, Gmail, Twitter, etc. All these applications are good examples for Single Page Application.

What is Single Page Application?  Learn more about Single Page Application 3
With Single Page Application, users will have the most optimal experience, enjoying the natural environment just "surfing" on a single page without having to reload the page.

Why was Single Page Application born?
Previously, when there was no Single Page Application, website programming would use the MVC model . The method of operation will focus on the server side: the client sends the request to the server, the server processes and responds to the client.

Usually, the server will return a whole web page complete with HTML, CSS and JavaScript . Meanwhile, the client does almost nothing. This full server response operation is called SSR - Server Side Rendering.

Going to the next stage, the website becomes more and more complex and the user requirements are higher. This forces developers to focus on user experience. The SSR is no longer responding to requests like it used to.

If you want to optimize the user experience, the application / website will be forced to reduce the work load on the server and focus on processing on the client to increase speed and increase the experience.

jQuery appears as a "savior" to support "what he does" between the server and the client. However, at this stage, jQuery is still rudimentary and has not yet met complex manipulations at the client.

And Single Page Application was born as an inevitable consequence for web programming to increase processing operations at the client, reducing the load on the server. Single Page Application is a technology that makes web development more complicated by separating frontend and backend.

In addition, frontend developers also have to pay attention to project structure and design models instead of just focusing on UX and UI like before.

How does Single Page Application work?
Simple understanding of Single Page Application as follows:

For the traditional model, when you want to see a picture with grass, sun and house, the Server will prepare all 3 of them and send 1 turn to you and then display it on the browser.

With Single Page Application, the server will send you each item in turn is the frame of the 3 above. The server then sends their colors again and paints over a full picture.

This will make the loading speed faster, resulting in a much improved user experience. For example, if you want to change the color of the sun, the traditional model sends the whole picture back to you; and Single Page Application will send back the color and position of the sun if there are changes to you.

Advantages and disadvantages of Single Page Application
Benefits of Single Page Application
Limit queries to the server
This is an advantage that follows the example above. Single Page Application only displays what you need, which means you can save a lot of costs and resources by not having to reload a whole page.

Mobile-friendly
Mobile devices are and will continue to grow steadily in the future. Therefore, mobile-friendly applications will "capture the hearts" of users.

For example, you visit two websites A and B. Site A displays all the functions and frames of the website on a mobile device with a "tiny" interactive screen. Meanwhile, site B applies Single Page Application to put the content on a single page, you just need to scroll down to download the content. Which website would you choose to “surf”? Surely “website B” will be the answer, right!

Grow 1 time for both
For businesses, programming a Single Page Application website will save a lot of time and costs when businesses can use API backed APIs for both websites and mobile devices and mobile applications if available.

Now the information flow is more streamlined and makes mobile app development a lot easier.

If businesses develop e-commerce shopping applications or social networks, Single Page Application will help businesses optimize loading speed. This will help increase the economic value of customers staying in the application longer and they will be more inclined to use your product, contributing directly to the increase in conversion rates.

Disadvantages of Single Page Application
Single Page Application is not a perfect model. This model still has some rather unfavorable disadvantages such as:

Content will not have high detail
Can not use the tips SEO Premium
Not suitable for inexperienced frontend developers
Increased workload
Content will not have high detail
The best example is content on Facebook. You can see that Facebook posts only support regular text and image content. If you want to have special characters or split headings like this article, you will need to use a 3rd party to intervene.

And now, Facebook has supported you to do bold, italic, split heading, ... and other operations on your computer.

Not suitable for inexperienced frontend developers
As a backend-oriented programmer, you will be shocked if you have no frontend experience like HTML, JavaScript, CSS, ajax, etc. when implementing Single Page Application.

So you will be forced to learn more about the frontend to work.

Increased workload
As mentioned in the article, a website project towards Single Page Application will have to be split into 2 separate backend and frontend projects. This will make small businesses with few employees "helpless" when the workload doubles than usual.

Therefore, in some cases, the traditional model will still have a "playing ground" for you!

At this point, you can also see that focusing on speed and user experience will have to be exchanged with experience, effort and a lot of money if you want a website / application following the Single Page Application model to be successful. labour. But Tino Group hopes that, in the future, your project will be able to bring as much profit as what you are and are about to trade. Tino Group wishes you success!

Frequently asked questions about Single Page Application
Should I use Angular for Single Page Application or not?
Yes, if your website or business application is built with a previous Angular application. This will be an advantage when you combine Angular to optimize for Single Page Application. Google still uses Angular for their applications like Gmail or Drive, ..

Is React.js good for Single Page Application or not?
Yes, React.js is developed by Facebook and they are using React.js for most of their apps and services such as: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and even big startups like Uber are also using for their products.

Is Single Page Application good for SEO or not?
In theory, your content will be rendered client-side and not readable by Google bots so this will not be good for SEO. Although there is a way to fix it, it will not be easy for inexperienced programmers.

Does Single Page Application have the potential to grow in the future?
Yes. Single Page Application has great potential for development in the future when mobile devices take the throne and most of the technology giants are focusing on developing Single Page Applications to optimize the user experience.