[traverseda]

There are two models of the "web", where HTML is a document and where HTML is the scenegraph of a more complicated app.

If you're using HTML as a document you can use web-components to include fancier interactive real-time feature

* A terminal emulator web component that attaches to a websocket * A date picker web component, add features like checking if a date is already taken * Custom form elements in general, a search-box that takes a URL for auto-completion suggestions * A map, but not a full mapping application * A data table, like the jquery plugin of old * Lightweight interactivity like tab widgets * Basically any of the custom components that jquery-ui provided

Yes you can do all of these without webcomponents, but the HTML is a lot cleaner and a lot more document like if it's a custom component. Mixing the model and scenegraph views of the web is not my favorite. It sure would be nice if there was a consistent library of web components available.

You can actually do pretty decent live-chat with something like HTMX and server-sent-events, I think. But it's sort of a progressive-enhancement view of HTML as a document model.