[drawkbox]

I am more a fan of the augmented style because it doesn't entrap you in dev lock-in to platforms.

The problem with frameworks, especially web frameworks, is they reimplement many items that are standard now (shadowdom, components, storage, templating, base libraries, class/async, network/realtime etc).

DOM rendering speeds have been improved due to virtualdom but is no longer needed with shadowdom.

The web standards of today are amazing and take away the need for frameworks today: from templating to html templates [1], vanilla javascript with classes [2] and async [3] and better api access like fetch [4] and browser support for vdom with shadow dom [5], components with WebComponents [6][7], css now with lots of additions like variables [8] transitions[9]/animations[10], flex and media queries, canvas/svg/etc for interactivity, and so much more. There is little need to use frameworks except to sell books and conferences and keep developers locked in.

React for instance jumped ahead and front ran WebComponents and ShadowDOM, those are both part of the browser and standards now. The killer feature phase of React is over.

If you like the component style of other frameworks but want to use Web Components, Google Lit is quite nice. [11]

Google Lit is like a combination of HTML Web Components and React/Vue style components. The great part is it is build on Web Components underneath.

[1] https://caniuse.com/template

[2] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Refe...

[3] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Refe...

[4] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Fetch_API/U...

[5] https://caniuse.com/shadowdomv1

[6] https://caniuse.com/custom-elementsv1

[7] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Web_Components

[8] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Using_CSS_c...

[9] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/transition

[10] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/animation

[11] https://lit.dev/

[CharlesW]

But if you introduce an open-source dependency to make web components usable, why not use a popular, complementary ecosystem like Vue?

https://vuejs.org/guide/extras/web-components.html

[drawkbox]

Staying closer to web standards is always best for maintainability and portability. I personally like custom direct standards but that doesn't always work in a team for some reason today. There will always be less dependencies in a straight standards solution, that makes for better maintainability and opsec. I also think it is better for web developers to know standards over just abstractions, it makes for better developers.

Additionally, web standards like Web Components/templates/custom elements will always be faster at browser level.

The article from OP mentions this:

> But the unique power of web components (in the browser) is that they can render before JavaScript. React components cannot do this — full stop.

There are other reasons as well but these are the best reasons.

I think using a framework for a team isn't a bad idea, but for products and personal projects I like going custom or newer framework like Lit simply because of the web standards being less abstracted away and due to that, less need to constantly update on others schedules due to dev lock-in. There is less weight in straight standards.

If you remember React/Vue originally won due to virtualdom and being small parts that work into an existing web, but recently they have been very monolithic in that they take over the entire project. The web is more about augmentation as the article mentions and I agree, those items will be easier to maintain.

[CharlesW]

> Staying closer to web standards is always best for maintainability and portability.

I understand that argument, but Lit isn't a web standard, and it's an esoteric choice compared to Vue, which works great with custom elements.

[drawkbox]

Yeah agreed, that is why I said "if you like the component style of other frameworks but want to use Web Components, Google Lit is quite nice"

Lit is just a lighter weight version of that and closer to web standards without having it bolted on to a larger, almost monolithic framework now.

I still prefer direct and custom with less dependencies but Lit is somewhat trying to communicate web standards while other current frameworks really want lock-in to the platform rather than caring about making sure devs understand the standards.

[troupo]

> Staying closer to web standards is always best for maintainability and portability.

That's what you get if you chose literally anything but web components. Because web components are really bad at using and playing nice with web standards: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1717580502280867847

They need dozens of new web standards to fix their self-inflicted wounds and to work with the browser in a way that everyone else is already working

> Additionally, web standards like Web Components/templates/custom elements will always be faster at browser level.

[citation needed]

The 2010-era design choices that web components enshrined hinder a lot of optimizations that modern frameworks are doing.

There are reasons why almost none of the modern frameworks use web components as the foundation. Including those who originally used their design or whose authors were bullish on them (Vue, Svelte, Solid).

IIRC even Angular beats Lit in benchmarks now.

[drawkbox]

I mostly agree but Web Components is a web standards as is templates/custom elements now.

The others like React/Vue/Svelte etc are all going more for platform/framework lock-in over making sure people are doing augmentation of standards.

Those frameworks have incentive to lock you in while standards are lock-in at a lower level.

Other standards I like playing with direct like html/css/canvas/WebGL/storage/svg/video/audio/geo/etc and ones that are newer are WebRTC/WebGL/WebGPU/WebAssembly etc. All of these are and will be abstracted by some frameworks and people will know less about them and more about the platforms on top if they aren't regularly going direct. I think people that know about the standards more low level make for better framework developers an developers that use frameworks even.

I like platforms that make web standards the core aim not the platform lock in.

Lit is just a lighter weight version of that and closer to web standards without having it bolted on to a larger, almost monolithic framework now.

Lit is somewhat Angular like since Google make both.

[troupo]

> I mostly agree but Web Components is a web standards as is templates/custom elements now.

People keep repeating this mantra as if this alone makes web components good

> Those frameworks have incentive to lock you in while standards are lock-in at a lower level.

Or: these frameworks have the incentive to solve problems that web standards have been unwilling to solve for decades, and won't solve for another few decades.

> I like platforms that make web standards the core aim not the platform lock in.

Then you should use literally anything else but web components. Because web components don't make standards their core, are broken on multiple levels, and will require 20 more new standards to fix things that are not broken in literally anything else: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1717580502280867847

> Lit is just a lighter weight version of that and closer to web standards

The only thing that is standard in Lit is that it compiles to web components by default.

[drawkbox]

I mostly agree but Web Components is a web standards as is templates/custom elements now. Web Components are a standard.

You did ask. heh.

As I mentioned, I prefer direct standards or at least frameworks that make standards a main part of the design, even if only on output.

Standards are slower to finalize, frameworks front ran them via abstractions that may have been needed for a while --like Flash with interactivity before HTML5/canvas/svg/WebGL/etc and I was huge into Flash and plugins, those days are over though. Standards will be around longer and more maintainable on standard schedules not just feature/dependency pump frameworks of today that have verbloat.

Plugins and now frameworks innovate and front run, and influence standards, then standards win the long game every single time. Like why use virtual DOM when shadowdom is now available, unnecessary abstraction now that will always lose to native dom abstractions like shadowdom.

Right now with web standards where they are at, Javascript how far it has come, and the coming WebAssembly + WebGPU platforms now being ready or close to ready, the current frameworks are about to be lapped. It is just the way things go and the typical waves in innovation to standards and repeat.

About Lit, I mentioned it as I said in another comment "if you like the component style of other frameworks but want to use Web Components, Google Lit is quite nice"

We can agree to disagree on the rest.