A technique that divides application code into smaller chunks that can be loaded on-demand rather than loading everything upfront. This improves initial load times by only downloading the code needed for the current page or feature.
The concept emerged in the early 2000s with the growth of single-page applications, but the term 'code splitting' was formalized with webpack around 2012. It evolved from the need to manage increasingly large JavaScript applications that were becoming too heavy for initial page loads.
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