Frontend architecture

Rendering strategies, micro-frontends, design systems, and performance budgets.

• "Design systems are a platform: treat them like one" · Note · Most design systems die the same way: a burst of initial energy produces a component library, teams adopt it unevenly, the library drifts from the product, contributions stall, and…
• "Micro-frontends: the narrow conditions where they pay off" · Note · Micro frontends promise microservices' organizational benefits for the UI: independent teams deploying independently. In practice, most adoptions buy the complexity of distributed…
• "SSR, ISR, and edge rendering: choosing without the hype" · Note · Every few years the frontend world rediscovers server rendering and declares client side rendering dead, then rediscovers its costs and declares SSR dead. The reality is boring and…
• "Web performance budgets: make speed a release gate" · Note · Every web team agrees performance matters and almost none treat it as a requirement. Features ship, bundles grow, images accumulate, third party scripts multiply, and performance…