I get it. React feels good and it’s sticky. But all frameworks eventually fizzle out.
Thanks to Web Components, large companies are realizing you don’t need to rebuild buttons and other UI primitives every few years. Teams don’t need to argue about frameworks anymore. You can have your cake and eat it too!
I think this may be the best long-term argument for web components:
Any org that goes all in on a single framework will eventually find themselves swimming upstream to hire talent to maintain legacy code and avoid framework rot. But you can reduce this burden (and the associated costs) by using Web Components in your design system.
I’m slapping my forehead—progressive web components is a perfect name for what I’ve been calling HTML web components. Why didn’t I think of that?
A Progressive Web Component is a native Custom Element designed in two layers: a base layer of HTML and CSS that renders immediately, without JavaScript, and an enhancement layer of JavaScript that adds reactivity, event handling, and more advanced templating.
Eric Meyer and Brian Kardell chat with Jay Hoffmann and Jeremy Keith about Shadow DOM’s backstory and long origins
I enjoyed this chat, and it wasn’t just about Shadow DOM; it was about the history of chasing the dream of encapsulation on the web.
An excellent example of an HTML web component from Eric:
Extend HTML to do things automatically!
He layers on the functionality and styling, considering potential gotchas at every stage. This is resilient web design in action.
Trys describes exactly the situation where you really do need to use the Shadow DOM in a web component—as opposed to just sticking to HTML web components—, and that’s when the component is going to be distributed and you have no idea where:
This component needed to be incredibly portable, looking great on any third-party website, in any position, at any viewport, with any amount of content. It had to be a “hyper-responsive” component.
Three great examples of HTML web components:
What I hope is that you now have the same sort of epiphany that I had when reading Jeremy Keith’s post: HTML Web Components are an HTML-first feature.
Some handy tips courtesy of Chris Ferdinandi.
How I switched to high-resolution maps on The Session without degrading performance.
Naming custom elements, naming attributes, the single responsibility principle, and communicating across components.
HTML web components for augmenting date inputs.
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