Public defence in Computer Science, M.Sc. Juho Vepsäläinen

Title of the thesis: Emergence of hybrid rendering models in web application development

Thesis defender: Juho Vepsäläinen
Opponent: Professor Tommi Mikkonen, University of Jyväskylä
Custos: Professor Petri Vuorimaa, Aalto University School of Science

Web is the largest available application platform and it reaches over 60% of the global population. Simultaneously the web was never intended for application development. In my thesis, I explore the steps leading to the current situation while positing which rendering techniques web developers could use to improve their applications. Rendering is a vital part of web development as each web application uses the technique in a way or another thereby making it a valuable topic for a broad study like this.

I approached the problem by first mapping the pathway to the Single Page Applications (SPAs), the current mainstream approach. Beyond this I looked into specific examples of disappearing frameworks, islands architecture, and resumability before considering how edge computing could be combined with Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR) and edge-powered islands to increase scalability and performance of web applications.

The attained results showed that standardization had a vital part in contributing towards the success of the open web. Islands architecture could be considered as a building block that formalized how to extract dynamic functionality from an otherwise static page and it combines well with edge computing. Disappearing frameworks address the cost of SPAs by rethinking axioms behind web frameworks. Resumability avoids a major cost of hydration by allowing developers to transmit initial data in HTML markup only once. ISR seems like a good compromise between static and server-side rendering.

Combined, the insights attained during the creation of this thesis give a picture of techniques and approaches that can be applied for creation of web applications that are more performant and lighter from the perspective of the users. In short, the main contribution of the thesis is to allow further study of these techniques in greater detail as pioneering work in the space of web rendering techniques.

Keywords: web, web development, web application development, rendering techniques, islands architecture, disappearing frameworks, resumability, edge computing

Contact information: juho.vepsalainen@aalto.fi / https://www.linkedin.com/in/juhovepsalainen/ 

Enrollment: https://www.meetabit.com/events/doctoral-defense-of-juho-vepsalainen

Thesis available for public display 10 days prior to the defence at Aaltodoc.