[arendtio]

> There should just be one way to do a scrolling list, implemented natively and left alone.

Maybe this one implementation should not be implemented natively? (otherwise you would need a new implementation for every platform)

However, I agree with you, that in the web development we are missing a mature component library. Everybody seems to build his own library when he needs one. In addition, the libraries to connect components to applications (react, vue, etc.) have their own component formats and logic, so that building components that can be used with different libraries is difficult. Furthermore, building a good component library is in itself a pretty daunting task.

[thrashh]

I think it’s a funding issue.

A lot of desktop GUI toolkits were funded by the people who created the platform themselves so they had every incentive to make it both flexible and consistent.

When I look for a web component, the few component libraries that cover several different components are often extremely incomplete. Often they’re just side projects of a company or even an individual. No one is putting in the money to create something fleshed out.

On the other hand, when I look for just a specific component (like a drop down or autocomplete textbox), there are sometimes very complete but because they are a single component, it has its own usage and styling conventions that are going to be completely different from some other component in my app.

No one has the funding incentive of building a complete component toolkit for the web.

[da_chicken]

I think that's part of it. I also think that, as far as interactive components, virtually nothing on the web has had a shelf life of longer than 3-5 years. Ever.

The lone exception are the base HTML components. I think the last actual change to those was making textarea resizable, and that's kind of a browser override to the spec as much as anything else. Essentially nothing has actually changed in form and UI elements.

That tells me:

1. The web is too obsessed with novelty to ever settle on one thing on their own.

2. The best group to actually establish such a thing is likely W3C, which means it will take 15 years and we'll have thrown two away as poorly considered before it's said and done. And it won't matter unless the changes would eliminate something as obnoxious as Flash.

That is still entirely possible. The web works very well, but it's still a combination of HTML, CSS and Javascript. The one word I can think of that describes the state of the overall design is "asinine".

[irrational]

I was going to suggest Google, except... they really don't, do they? They want everyone to use their own tools/sites/etc.

Hmm, maybe Mozilla? But they've been firing all of their staff and cutting way back, so they won't do it.

Microsoft? Save reasoning as Google.

So... yeah, there probably is nobody that has the incentive to do this.

[jitl]

Microsoft is building a web component framework: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/fluentui#/get-started/...

[PKop]

I went to check this out, seems they're only focusing on React and beyond that, a maintainer mentions they're looking for funding. Doesn't sound too promising...

https://github.com/OfficeDev/office-ui-fabric-core/issues/12...

[oldmanhorton]

A lot of this has morphed into the unfortunately named FAST framework, which focuses on web components rather than react. However, they have both Microsoft fluent and unstyled flavors, in case you just want to style things yourself and not look microsofty

[gowld]

> A lot of desktop GUI toolkits were funded by the people who created the platform themselves

Not Linux (GTK, QT).

And not Java Swing

[secondaryacct]

How much do you pay ? Because Syncfusion or Sencha have well funded well working stuff.

[jatone]

this is simply because a single implemention doesn't and won't meet all needs. many times you need a simple component that just renders properly, but some people need a11n, others need a bunch of i18n which opens up another can of worms. and did I mention all of these need to integrate with whatever cluster fuck of a system they wrote? and different UX designs / coding designs.

[simion314]

>building a good component library is in itself a pretty daunting task.

Google could do a deal with Qt or Apache/Adobe Flex and use their APIs or even copy paste their code, this projects have years of experience and bug fixing, their components are advanced and super easy to use. Using Flex4 is at least 1000x faster then web native.

[lxe]

Right? Mozilla's XUL had the right idea a the time. I wonder if similar things exist for the modern age?