[isochronous]

Weird, because we're using web components at my workplace to build complex web applications. We use Lit-Element as a base class and have come up with a top-down functional state pattern for data that removes the need for two-way binding. If a sub-component needs to update its state due to DOM interaction, it just fires off an event with info about that DOM interaction, and the data store for that component (another web component) does the necessary state modification, then fires off a "state-changed" event that tells all associated components to update their state from the "master" store (one line of code). All of the data elements use pure functions to do state modification, so doing complex operations is simply a matter of composing the appropriate functions. I've not used react myself other than playing with a few demos, but another developer on my team says the pattern is very similar to how react stores work, and the core modules that drive it are like 100 lines of code.

[nwienert]

Lit-Element puts lipstick on the low level pig, but React excels in many ways beyond it. Consistency between props (vs attributes), can render server side, awesome side effect system that makes it world class at hmr.

I think WebComponents have left a horrible taste in the mouth because they came well after React and others existed, didn’t take any inspiration or provide any abstractions that would help, did basically everything worse and seemingly without any discussion with real world devs, and then were hyped and pushed on everyone for years while they basically lacked all necessary features. Now, years later they have evolved and added libraries on top to smooth over all the weirdness, and if you squint they look similar, but the web would have been a better place if they had just provided some VDOM abstractions, style containment in a simple way, and so on rather than master-planned a High Modernist dystopia and then slowly painted over it until it resembled something like the organic cities that already existed.

[isochronous]

I guess maybe you had a different experience than I did, because I never had web components "pushed" at me in any way. It was always a technology I was keeping my eye on but was hesitant to invest in until the browser support was there, and now that the browser support arrived I've seen a grand total of ONE web-component-focused talk at the web dev conferences I've attended, and that one was given by our project lead.

[lootsauce]

Yes, every word

[azangru]

I've tried LitElement (still using it in a small project), and wanted to like it; but the whole experience was so cumbersome compared to something like React.

1) Classes for writing components. Yuck. React's function component feels much more elegant.

2) @property decorator. Double yuck! I want a reactive way of updating my component's state without having to declare this piece of state as a property accessible by the outside world.

3) this.requestUpdate(). Triple yuck compared to something like React's setState or useState hook.

4) In order to create children components, I need to create more customElement-decorated classes? Yuck again!