[zelly]

If you're using a framework like lit-html as the author recommends, it will replace the string every update. Most people will prefer that way since it's more ergonomic and similar to React. You could do imperative DOM updates, but that'd be like going back in time to jQuery.

[claviska]

This is false. It does not replace the entire string, but uses a template literal to identify which changes need to be made before selectively updating the DOM.

This video is a few years old, but the core concepts remain the same.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Io6JjgckHbg

[robertlagrant]

Wow, that's a pretty compelling video. I guess they all are, but I like the use of modern web standards.

[jaredcwhite]

This simply isn't true. Tagged template literals are not string concatenation. Also any "thin layer" of tooling on top of vanilla web components (like Lit) is entirely capable of passing complex objects as props. String-only "props" are only the case for literal HTML attributes in your source HTML—and even then you can embed JSON in an attribute and get a real parsed object within the component.

[dmitriid]

> Tagged template literals are not string concatenation

They are not concatenation by themselves. But for them to be useful, you will end up doing a lot of it because there's nothing else to do with strings than parse (often with regexps [1]) and concatenate [2] the strings. And then you dump the concatenated string into the DOM using `.innerHtml` [3]

There's no magic.

[1] https://github.com/lit/lit/blob/main/packages/lit-html/src/l...

[2] https://github.com/lit/lit/blob/main/packages/lit-html/src/l... and https://github.com/lit/lit/blob/main/packages/lit-html/src/l... and so on.

[3] https://github.com/lit/lit/blob/main/packages/lit-html/src/l...

[dtagames]

I use Lit every day and I have no idea what you're talking about.

Any property can be a full JS object. When the property is changed, it is re-rendered in your component. I have never touched innerHtml and my Lit apps pass and render all kinds of stuff into html`` tagged templates.

It's really pure magic because you can freely mix regular old HTML and regular attributes with dynamic data and data binding. There's more than one way to write anything which gives you great flexibility. I adore tagged templates, and they work for CSS and SVG, too.

[dmitriid]

> I use Lit every day and I have no idea what you're talking about.

I'm talking about how lit is implemented internally and that's why I provided links to relevant parts of lit's code.

People having no idea how things work is the bane of our industry. And that's why we have objectively false statements like "regular old HTML and regular attributes with dynamic data and data binding".

Lit is almost as far from "regular old HTML" as React's JSX is: lit is a HTML-like DSL that even has constraints on how you use tagged literals themselves.

E.g. `<${tagName}></${tagName}>` is a valid tagged literal and it's invalid in lit.[1]

> they work for CSS and SVG, too.

If lit lets you mix SVG with custom elements, they don't really use custom elements. See discussion https://twitter.com/Rich_Harris/status/1198339672361119745?s...

[1] https://lit.dev/docs/templates/expressions/#invalid-location...

[dtagames]

I do understand that string concatenation and DOM rewrites are happening under the hood. How could they not be? But the point of using an abstraction like Lit is that I don't have to worry about that part.

Are you suggesting that Lit is updating .innerHtml when it doesn't need to? And are you sure about that? Because that should be entirely under my control by setting properties or state of the component, not by Lit redrawing them willy-nilly.

[dmitriid]

> Are you suggesting that Lit is updating .innerHtml when it doesn't need to?

Literally nowhere did I say that. I was responding to a specific thing.

[brundolf]

Right, all I'm saying is this is nothing intrinsic to the Web Components standard like the parent comment suggested. It's just one particular way you might use them.