AngularJS getting data from backend

Question

I would like to know what is the proper way to get data from backend when I want to use angularJs (or similar) in my web app?

The only way I see is to render html (static html with js scripts - e.g. angularjs) with no data from backend and then download data via ajax requests from my backend API. But I think this solution is not good because of many HTTP requests:

For example I have blog website, I want to show a post, comments, and the related posts on the sidebar. So probably I need to make at least 3 HTTP requests to get the data unless I will prepare API to get all I need in one request.

I can also imagine websites that could have much more HTTP requests. Is it a proper way to do this? Doesn't it overload a server? Or my way of thinking is so wrong?

Answer 1

It is either websockets or HTTP requests. Preparing API to get all in one request is one option. Another two options are XMLHttpRequest/iframe streaming which is a method of a technique known as Comet.

I would go with websockets since it is supposed to solve the problem that was previously solved with weird applications like iframe streaming. There are libraries that properly handles fallbacks if the browser does not support websockets:

web-socket-js ( this needs a websocket server )

Socket.IO ( this has a node.js module and also implements a kind of unnecessary protocol on top of websocket protocol )

If you choose the old methods there will be many problems waiting for you on the road like XmlHttpRequest.responseText while loading (readyState==3) in Chrome