[facu17y]

Browser vendors are (or should be) managing the abstractions for their own needs, with developer needs expected to be met by framework/library developers.

Who says web components are meant for use directly by the developer? Maybe they're primarily meant for the browser developers (those who build browser features), not for use directly by web app developers.

[WA]

No. Browser vendors implement specs, defined by the W3C. To quote the W3C‘s tagline:

> The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) develops standards and guidelines to help everyone build a web based on the principles of accessibility, internationalization, privacy and security.

Web Components are a standard to be used by web devs.

[tannhaeuser]

FYI: the last time W3C, Inc. endorsed a WHATWG HTML snapshot as a recommendation was in 2021 ([1]), for the WHATWG snapshot published January, 2020 whereas the 2021 and 2022 snapshots were rejected, with no new review process having started since.

Reasons for rejection include a reporting API seen as privacy-invading and related disagreement over whether W3C's HTML WG could augment/redact WHATWG spec text like they used to be doing until 2017 when the previous HTML recommendation was published, or has to go through WHATWG process for any change according to the W3C/WHATWG "memorandum of understanding" which thus hasn't resulted in common understanding after all ;) Another reason was objection against the so-called HTML5 outlining algorithm, which Steve Faulkner actually has gone to great lenghts removing in WHATWG HTML upstream (cf. [2] for details).

Unfortunately, the removal also brought incompatible change to HTML (the content model of hgroup, among other incompatibilities), rendering existing content invalid, which WHATWG set out not to be doing but which they lack the methodology of preventing and for which the spec derived from Ian Hickson's work frankly lacks formal qualities to support. Even more unfortunate is that this change has already spilled to derived standards such as EPUB3 which hence makes existing EPUB3 content using compound headings going back to 2011 invalid, and EPUB3 writers lacking a tool for actually verifying what readers can support (epubcheck was blindly updated without consideration for the installed base). Technically, Review Draft January 2022 and newer should then already be called HTML 6. Since nobody gives a rat's ass (including W3C, Inc.'s dormant HTML WG) anyway, and gross misconceptions about HTML specs prevail, like in your post, I'm not sure whether we should call it a day with WHATWG/W3C's HTML specs already.

[1]: https://www.w3.org/blog/2021/whatwg-review-drafts-of-html-an...

[2]: https://sgmljs.net/blog/blog2303.html

[kabes]

And who defines the W3C specs? Browser vendors! And if they don't agree with the non browser vendors within W3C, they create another standard org (WHATWG).

[lloydatkinson]

Anyone not under a rock knows W3C simply copies whatever WHATWG come up with and then stamp W3C on it.

[pests]

Kind of the point. WHATWG is descriptive not prescriptive. It describes things as they are. W3C is a standards body, sometimes they use the existing solutions and standardize them.

[troupo]

> with developer needs expected to be met by framework/library developers.

You can't implement stuff efficiently if there's no required functionality in the platform

> Who says web components are meant for use directly by the developer?

The people who develop them

[austin-cheney]

This is why I abandoned my career writing JavaScript. It’s an industry of people hopelessly in need of frameworks and tools to do their job for them because they cannot program.

[jeroenhd]

I think that's unfair. There are a lot of Javascript programmers that are perfectly competent.

Unfortunately, the trash "become a programmer in three days" bootcamps and scam courses all target web development, flooding the market with people who were taught one or two tricks and told they're the cream of the crop and should definitely not ask for their money back if nobody wants to hire them.

It's the same problem PHP and Python have suffered from: when your programming language and API is accessible and easy to use, you'll attract a lot of beginners and people who skipped the hard parts.

For some reason, the frontend world seems intent on reinventing itself every five years or so. The backend world works in cycles of 10 to 20 years, but it's going through the same motions. Everything became C, then C++ and Delphi came along, then everything became Java and DotNet, mow everything is becoming Go and Rust, and every iteration brings about new design concepts and paradigms.

[austin-cheney]

Find me common JavaScript employment without use of a framework or to merely put text on screen and you will prove me wrong.

[jeroenhd]

What business doesn't use some kind of framework, even for the backend? I've never heard of a successful business building everything from scratch, usually you'll have something like Qt for GUI construction, or Django/Ktor/ASP.NET for a web server.

I believe Wikipedia uses mostly frameworkless Javascript, but, as you might expect from any sufficiently sized project, they have come up with their own frameworks instead.

[no_wizard]

Wikipedia is migrating to Vue[0]

[0]: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Vue.js

[baz00]

Yes that. Lines up with the meme going around. They call me 007. 0 coding skills. 0 social skills. 7 Udemy certificates.

[dncornholio]

Looks to me that would be the ultimate reason to stay in JavaScript, because it seems you hold a competitive advantage over the rest of the developers