The hypermedia approach that lets backend engineers build modern interactive apps without a SPA framework — htmx for swapping server-rendered HTML over the wire, Alpine.js for sprinkles of client state, when this beats React and when it does not, progressive enhancement, and wiring it into a Go, Python, or Rust backend. A pragmatic alternative to the JavaScript-framework treadmill.
Frontend
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Server-Driven UI with htmx and Alpine.js -
The Browser as a Platform How the thing on the other end of your API actually works — the DOM and the rendering pipeline (parse, style, layout, paint, composite), the event loop and the microtask queue, what reflow and repaint actually cost, the Web Platform APIs worth knowing, and the security model (same-origin, CORS, CSP). The mental model that makes frontend performance and bugs make sense.
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The Modern Frontend Build Pipeline What actually happens between your source files and the browser, for engineers who live in the backend — module systems (ESM vs CommonJS), why bundling exists, transpilation, the Rust-and-Go speed revolution behind esbuild, SWC, Oxc and Rolldown, tree-shaking and code-splitting, source maps, and the Vite dev-server loop. Demystifying the toolchain so the frontend stops feeling like magic.