Widget architecture - part 1

This series of articles will explore a component-based architecture, in which each component or widget is self-contained, allowing for quick scaling of a project by adding more engineers.

This type of architecture has been used in several client projects, such as powering generic list content at The New York Times and creating new home widgets at The Browser Company.

Requirements

At the end of the series, we'll have an architecture in which

• Widgets are self-contained and can be worked on in isolation
• Adding new widgets doesn't require any manual labor from the developers
• We support the rapid development of new and existing widgets
• Widgets can be driven via data