TRACK · GENERAL · CHANNEL D
Building a Real App
Graduate from pages to apps. Build a weather dashboard and recipe book.
1What Makes an "App" vs. a "Page"?
You have been building web pages -- static documents with some interactivity. A web app goes further. It manages data, responds to user input dynamically, and often feels like a desktop or mobile application.
Page vs. App
Web Page
- Displays fixed content
- Limited or no interactivity
- Think: restaurant menu, blog post
Web App
- Manages state (data that changes)
- Reacts to user input in real time
- Think: weather app, recipe book, Gmail
The key difference is state. An app maintains data in memory (like a list of recipes or the current city in a weather search) and updates the display when that data changes. Every time you search, filter, add, or delete -- the app's state changes and the UI reflects it.