Web Components Eliminate JavaScript Framework Lock-In • Hacker News Board

Re: Web Components Eliminate JavaScript Framework Lock-In

#101

Post by Devasta » Mon, Nov 27, 2023, 6:52 PM UTC

ecmascript wrote: post #86

switchbak wrote: post #69

I haven't been in the frontend world for many years now, but I come from the mid-90's world of GUI development / game engines / old school desktop stuff. I look at this stuff, and just think how sad it is that we haven't progressed beyond the state of gluing together freakin low level divs and spans within some JS code with callbacks galore. For some reason I thought we'd have made it beyond that by 2023, and we coul…

I do front end stuff for a living and have been in the javascript space for several years. I do other backend development as well and I can't see why people think like you honestly. Most other GUI libraries is in a much worse state than front end web dev. That is probably also the reason why people use front end tech to make native apps today, because you can customize and make apps much faster than in basically any…

Devs use web frontend tech because it is installed on every machine, will never have anything less than the full backing of the browser devs for the next hundred years, and gets around corporate filters. No need to deal with IT security losers to get your app installed, no need to get ports opened, just everything down port 443 until the end of time.

INTERCAL could win with that feature set.

Re: Web Components Eliminate JavaScript Framework Lock-In

#102

Post by paulddraper » Mon, Nov 27, 2023, 6:53 PM UTC

itslennysfault wrote: post #98

I like the idea of web components, but really dislike html and js being intermingled (the reason I don't like React/JSX). In web components its even worse because its HTML as a string which means it has no validation and isn't syntax aware. I much prefer the angular approach where you have separate css,html,ts files, and would love a web component framework that could work similarly. Searching for this I found some k…

> its HTML as a string

Can you explain what you mean by that?

Re: Web Components Eliminate JavaScript Framework Lock-In

#103

Post by adam_arthur » Mon, Nov 27, 2023, 6:54 PM UTC

People discussing writing Web Components by hand are missing the point.

Web Components, once adequately specced, will become a compile target for higher level frameworks like React and Vue. That way you still get the benefits of higher level frameworks but the components can interoperate with each other. Vue CLI already supports compiling down to a WebComponent, though not sure how first class it is.

There are far too many lacking ergonomics to expect writing Web Components by hand to become popularized/convention

Re: Web Components Eliminate JavaScript Framework Lock-In

#104

Post by IshKebab » Mon, Nov 27, 2023, 6:54 PM UTC

paulddraper wrote: post #102

itslennysfault wrote: post #98

I like the idea of web components, but really dislike html and js being intermingled (the reason I don't like React/JSX). In web components its even worse because its HTML as a string which means it has no validation and isn't syntax aware. I much prefer the angular approach where you have separate css,html,ts files, and would love a web component framework that could work similarly. Searching for this I found some k…

> its HTML as a string Can you explain what you mean by that?

React uses JSX/TSX which is much better because it is syntax checked and even type checked in the case of TSX.

Re: Web Components Eliminate JavaScript Framework Lock-In

#105

Post by paulddraper » Mon, Nov 27, 2023, 6:54 PM UTC

switchbak wrote: post #69

I haven't been in the frontend world for many years now, but I come from the mid-90's world of GUI development / game engines / old school desktop stuff. I look at this stuff, and just think how sad it is that we haven't progressed beyond the state of gluing together freakin low level divs and spans within some JS code with callbacks galore. For some reason I thought we'd have made it beyond that by 2023, and we coul…

Do elaborate on what UI paradigm web browsers ought to use from mid-90s GUI development.

Re: Web Components Eliminate JavaScript Framework Lock-In

#106

Post by claytongulick » Mon, Nov 27, 2023, 6:54 PM UTC

itslennysfault wrote: post #98

I like the idea of web components, but really dislike html and js being intermingled (the reason I don't like React/JSX). In web components its even worse because its HTML as a string which means it has no validation and isn't syntax aware. I much prefer the angular approach where you have separate css,html,ts files, and would love a web component framework that could work similarly. Searching for this I found some k…

If you use a good rendering library, like lit-html then (at least in vscode) you get very nice syntax highlighting, completion and validation:

    html`
    
    `

Re: Web Components Eliminate JavaScript Framework Lock-In

#107

Post by QuadmasterXLII » Mon, Nov 27, 2023, 6:54 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #67

wayfinder wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your criticism was the biggest one of React when it came out -- mixing view code with your controller code. Big no no. Everyone loved the MVC pattern (model-viewer-controller where you separate these things in different places) and what React did was a big no no. But you know, if you are trying to put HTML templates in separate files, you have to now send extra HTTP requests. That's an even bigger no no. In other lan…

> But you know, if you are trying to put HTML templates in separate files, you have to now send extra HTTP requests. That's an even bigger no no. It's not actually, with HTTP/2. The separate requests are all multiplexed over the same connection, often with prefetching, and compressed together so that there's little to no overhead vs. putting them in the same file. This illustrates a common failure point for web frame…

Can I borrow some knowledge? What sort of operations trigger a reflow and repaint?

Re: Web Components Eliminate JavaScript Framework Lock-In

#108

Post by jdmg94 » Mon, Nov 27, 2023, 6:54 PM UTC

jakelazaroff wrote: post #37

earthboundkid wrote: post #17

No, they just lock you into one framework per component. I don't know why people say obviously false stuff like this about web components besides they just really, really want it to be true. Yeah, if you're willing to have the same framework on the page ten times, you can just chuck them all in separate script tags using the custom element API. But if you care about making a performant page with progressive enhanceme…

Author here — I'm not sure what you mean by "lock you into one framework per component". The point is that you can encapsulate framework code within web components, not that every component you write should be a web component. Let's say you're writing a Vue app and you really want to use a library that's only available as a React component. You can wrap that library in a web component and use it in your Vue app just…

except you can't use it as a normal component, you can't adjust its CSS normally, you have to `&::part()` your way around and hope for the best. Accessing through refs is a complete blackbox. I work with web components daily and it is a hindrance to my daily work, it is very common for people at my org to just re-write a component instead of using its web component version.

Re: Web Components Eliminate JavaScript Framework Lock-In

#109

Post by thfuran » Mon, Nov 27, 2023, 6:54 PM UTC

paulddraper wrote: post #102

itslennysfault wrote: post #98

I like the idea of web components, but really dislike html and js being intermingled (the reason I don't like React/JSX). In web components its even worse because its HTML as a string which means it has no validation and isn't syntax aware. I much prefer the angular approach where you have separate css,html,ts files, and would love a web component framework that could work similarly. Searching for this I found some k…

> its HTML as a string Can you explain what you mean by that?

Html as a string literal in code rather than the html being in a separate .html file.

Re: Web Components Eliminate JavaScript Framework Lock-In

#110

Post by Devasta » Mon, Nov 27, 2023, 6:55 PM UTC

jakelazaroff wrote: post #37

earthboundkid wrote: post #17

No, they just lock you into one framework per component. I don't know why people say obviously false stuff like this about web components besides they just really, really want it to be true. Yeah, if you're willing to have the same framework on the page ten times, you can just chuck them all in separate script tags using the custom element API. But if you care about making a performant page with progressive enhanceme…

Author here — I'm not sure what you mean by "lock you into one framework per component". The point is that you can encapsulate framework code within web components, not that every component you write should be a web component. Let's say you're writing a Vue app and you really want to use a library that's only available as a React component. You can wrap that library in a web component and use it in your Vue app just…

That sounds awful to be honest. A recipe for total loss of standardization within an org.