Building Large Scale Web Apps | A React Field Guide

By Addy Osmani and Hassan Djirdeh

Code Smart, Scale Fast, Conquer Challenges

Learn tools and techniques to build and maintain large-scale React web applications.

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Or for free.

Building Large Scale Web Apps: A React Field Guide. By Addy Osmani and Hassan Djirdeh

“Building Large Scale Web Apps” is a toolkit to managing large-scale React applications.

React as a library allows you to start building user interfaces quickly and easily. But how do things scale as an application grows? How do you ensure that your codebase remains manageable, your performance metrics stay on point, and your team continues to work cohesively as the project evolves?

In this book, you'll uncover strategies that industry professionals use to build scalable, performant, and maintainable React applications, all without becoming overwhelmed by complexity.

Manage complex React applications by understanding how robust data fetching and state management libraries help streamline development.
Understand how design systems and component libraries enhance consistency and usability.
Recognize the importance of internationalization, personalization, and A/B testing in improving user engagement and conversion rates.
Discover how testing and TypeScript enhance code reliability and maintainability.
And a lot more!

Together, we've spent well over two decades building within or consulting for

What's inside?

Every topic below is a chapter of its own!

Managing Software Complexity

Explaining Complexity
Root causes of complexity
A philosophy of software design

Modularity

Modules in JavaScript
Lazy-loading
Code-splitting

Performance

Understanding how browsers work
Reducing the cost of JavaScript
Rendering patterns

Design Systems

Coding style guides
Design tokens
Component libraries

Data Fetching

Browser APIs and simple HTTP clients
Advanced data-fetching libraries
Tips for efficient data-fetching

State Management

Managing data between components
Simple state management
Dedicated state management libraries

Internationalization

Third-party localization libraries
Format dates, times, and numbers
Right-to-left (RTL) languages

Organizing code

Folder and file structure
Naming conventions
Barrel exports

Personalization & A/B testing

Personalization
A/B Testing
Feature flags

Scalable web architecture

Scalable applications
Kubernetes & Docker
Vercel & Netlify

Testing

Unit, integration, and end-to-end tests
Snapshot testing
How should we test our apps?

Tooling

Version control & CI
Bundlers
Logging & performance monitoring

Technical migrations

Different migration strategies
Codemods
The role of generative AI

TypeScript

React & TypeScript
Autogenerating types from an API
Migrating a React app to TypeScript

See the full table of contents

Some other things!

Descriptive content, continous updates, and soundbites from industry professionals.

Descriptive, not prescriptive

When explaining content, we follow a descriptive approach, not prescriptive. In other words, we don’t tell you what specific tools or libraries you have to use to be successful. Rather, we focus on explaining a concept and employ certain libraries or tools to illustrate that concept.

React-focused with universal concepts

While the book is React-focused, it teaches universal concepts that transcend all web development frameworks. It's designed to enhance your understanding of building web applications that are scalable, maintainable, and adaptable, regardless of the specific technology stack.

Continous, frequent updates

Purchasing the e-book gives you access to all new content, edits, and improvements forever. In fact, we're currently working on adding three new chapters soon — Routing, User-centric API design, and React in 2024. Check out the Changelog to follow along on all the updates we'll make.

Soundbites from industry professionals

In the book, we share soundbites and thoughts from industry professionals. These soundbites are shared from start-up owners and software engineers who work at Doordash, Netflix, Spotify, and more.

Industry nuggets

Nuggets of wisdom from industry professionals

Jem Young

Maxi Ferreira

Emma Bostian

Zeno Rocha

Francine Navarro

Jeffrey Peng

And others!

In my years at Netflix, I've learned a lot about testing. It's not just about the code, it's about the culture as well.

Besides the cultural aspect is the need to have a cohesive tool set. When I first joined [my team at Netflix], we had unit tests that were all over the place. We had Jest, we had Mocha, I think we had some Enzyme tests too. Now, we've kind of unified on a standard set of way of writing tests

Jem Young

Engineering Manager @ Netflix & Co-host of Front End Happy Hour.

Who we are

Heyo! We're Addy & Hassan — Engineers & Educators.

Addy Osmani

I'm an engineering leader working on Google Chrome and I lead up Chrome's Developer Experience organization, helping reduce the friction for developers to build great user experiences.

Hassan Djirdeh

I'm a senior software engineer and have built large production web applications at organizations like Doordash, Instacart, and Shopify.

Pick your package

“Building Large Scale Web Apps” is available in either an e-book or as a physical copy.

E-book

Great for digital learners.

$24.99_USD

300+ pages
PDF or EPub (or both)
All future updates

Buy with Leanpub Or buy with Apple Books or Google Play

Physical copy (softcover)

Perfect for hands-on referencers.

$49.99_USD

300+ pages
Softcover
Something to put on your bookshelf
Interested in both the e-book and physical copy? Purchase both separately!

Buy Physical Copy

Some words from readers

Here are some things we've been hearing from our readers.

- My current weekend read. This is exactly what I've been looking for.
  
  Artem Mezentsev
  
  Software Developer @ Flaire
- I was thrilled to purchase the book on release day and it far exceeded my expectations.
  
  Anurag Chouksey
  
  Tech Leadership @ Thrive Market
- A great read that provides an abundance of material for planning and developing large-scale websites.
  
  Abdulraoof Aldabil
  
  Senior Frontend Engineer
- Absolute beast of a gem. Totally recommend for all frontend developers!
  
  Totally recommend for all frontend developers!
  
  Prosper Otemuyiwa
  
  CTO @ Eden Life
- I’m absolutely loving the book so far. I can already tell this is going to be one of my favorite reads of the year.
  
  Maxi Ferreira
  
  Staff SWE @ HelpScout
- Very insightful book. Have recommended it to a lot of developers in my circle.
  
  Brunel Johnson
  
  Fullstack Developer

FAQ

Got questions? We've got answers.

: You don't need to be a React expert but we assume you know the basics of React. With that said, we spend as much time as we can to introduce and explain concepts in as much detail as possible so if you're new to React, no need to worry!

: The book has 16 chapters totaling about 300+ pages. This will grow as we add more content and new chapters over time.

: The book is currently available in Epub, PDF, and Softcover format.

: Yes! The book is complete, though we will still make updates and add new and up-to-date content over time.

: Yes! You can track the updates we make in the /changelog page.

: You'll uncover strategies that industry professionals use to build maintainable and scalable React applications. You'll cover concepts like data fetching, client-side state management, design systems, A/B testing, TypeScript and a lot more. Check out the full table of contents for more details.

: Absolutely. to get a sample chapter right in your inbox.

: We are aiming to make the book available globally in as many formats and platforms as possible. At this time, while the book is not available on Amazon, we do make it available to buy from LeanPub which does have a guide for getting LeanPub books onto your Kindle device.

We may make the book available on Amazon in the future and if we do, will be sure to share it on the . We have not authorized third-party sellers to sell the book on Amazon so be sure to check you aren't purchasing a low-quality pirate copy from there :)

: We think that PPP is awesome for making books globally available to countries where purchase power is slightly less strong than in the US, Canada or parts of Europe.

If you would like to request PPP consideration for a purchase, please complete this form and we'll circle back to you after the initial launch.

: Our primary eBook platform (LeanPub) should work globally for digital purchases. For physical book purchases, our provider Lulu, is available globally across a number of continents. That said, it's possible that your country or region is not one that they currently deliver to.

If this is the case, hold tight and continue to watch our . We are evaluating options for more global delivery of the book and will share more once they're available.

: Yes absolutely. Some of the distribution we've done automatically distributed the e-book through Lulu and Amazon. However, when it comes to purchasing the e-book, we recommend purchasing through Leanpub (or Apple Books/Google Play).

If you've purchased an e-book format where the formatting doesn't match what you're looking for (or you've received only an ePub or PDF and not the other), reach out to either of us and we'll sort you out!