Understand the systems behind modern web applications.
WebApplications.ca is a concise reference for frontend, UI engineering, API design, and the patterns that make web products reliable at scale. Built for developers, designers who ship, and teams that want clarity instead of hype.
Learning paths
Choose a path. Each one is a small map of core concepts, patterns, and reference pages.
Modern frontend in practice
Rendering models, state, performance budgets, accessibility, and what ships reliably.
APIs that stay sane at scale
Versioning, auth, pagination, idempotency, rate limits, docs, and error design.
Design systems without chaos
Tokens, components, governance, contribution flow, and avoiding CSS archaeology.
Role hubs
High-signal landing pages you can map to your role domains later (frontenddeveloper.ca, uideveloper.ca, apideveloper.ca).
Frontend Developer
Performance, state boundaries, UX clarity, and shipping constraints.
UI Developer
Component architecture, design tokens, accessibility, and consistent interfaces.
API Developer
Contracts, auth, versioning, and keeping integrations stable.
Featured guides
Editorial-style entries: fewer, better pages. Each guide links out to deeper references and your other projects.
Authentication models that don’t surprise you
Sessions, cookies, tokens, OAuth, and defaults that fail safely.
Caching is an architecture decision
CDNs, ETags, stale-while-revalidate, and avoiding cache roulette.
Design systems as governance, not decoration
Tokens, component ownership, contribution workflow, and versioning the UI.
Patterns library
Short references that answer what this is and when it breaks. Ideal for interlinking.
Idempotency keys
Stop duplicate writes when clients retry. Especially important for payments and mutations.
Pagination: cursor vs offset
Why offset pagination becomes expensive and inconsistent, and when cursors win.
Performance budgets
Make performance a constraint. Define budgets and test them continuously.
About the structure
Hub-first: role hubs introduce the job, guides explain mechanics, and references answer narrow questions.
Hubs → guides → references
Keep it readable and maintainable with a small knowledge graph instead of endless categories.
Wire real search when you’re ready
Start with tags and hubs. Add Pagefind or Lunr.js once you have enough content to justify it.
Link to your other projects
Each hub can link to BoldOutlook articles, Awesome Lists, or tools without feeling like a link farm.