Exploring the Pros and Cons of Web Components

In this episode, Jake and Surma chat about web components. Why they were invented, what they're useful for, and how they would improve.

Resources:

• Surma showers his eyeball.
• The old custom elements 'v0' spec.
• The old shadow DOM 'v0' spec.
• The old HTML imports spec.
• The initial version of Polymer.
• Lit (formally lit-html).
• HTML attributes vs DOM properties.
• Issue looking at ways custom elements could have  behavior.
• The ElementInternals API, for making custom elements interact with forms.
• The is attribute.
• WebKit's position on the is attribute.
• Programmatically assigning children to slots.
• Issue looking at ways to slot children that aren't direct children of the shadow host.
• Declarative shadow DOM.
• Custom element support in React 19.
• pinch-zoom custom element.