"Single Page Applications"

Dan Gebhardt

July 31, 2013

ruminations, web apps

I no longer use the term "Single Page Application".

The term is quite server-centric, which made a lot of sense when it was coined in 2005. However, with the introduction of pushState and replaceState in HTML5, applications can now directly manipulate the browser's history and visibly change the URL. It's hard to argue that an application exists on a "single page" when it can navigate to multiple URLs, all of which can be bookmarked or opened in new tabs, and can reconstitute their state with a browser refresh. Certainly this doesn't fit any user's definition of a "page".

Terminology is important. Instead of Single Page Application, I now say "JavaScript Web Application". Perhaps a bit boring, but undeniably accurate :)