Infrequently Noted

Like I said (multiple times), I am very excited about Web Components. Sorry if my note of caution comes across as hand-wringing.

Apologies for writing such "piffle and tosh."

Some relevant links concerning the "piffle and tosh" characterisation of any display of concern around web components...

Soledad Penadés: http://soledadpenades.com/2014/09/19/extensible-web-summit-berlin-2014-my-lightning-talk-on-web-components/

"If the W3C, or any other standardisation organisation wants to attract “normal” developers to get more diverse inputs, they/we should start by being respectful to everyone. Don’t try to show everyone how superclever you are. Don’t be a jerk. Don’t scare people away, because then only the loud ones stay, and the quieter shy people, or people who have more urgent matters to attend (such as, you know, having a working business website even if it’s not using the latest and greatest API) will just leave."

Bruce Lawson: http://www.brucelawson.co.uk/2014/extensible-web-summit-berlin/

"We need to ensure that all devs who want to can participate by allowing ease of collaboration, courteous discourse."

Web components are really exciting, but I have the same fears as Jeremy, it's about people, not tech.

Re: "thinking very hard" at Google, you mean like what AngularJS is doing in their Docs, for instance? https://twitter.com/pauljadam/status/499617653292826624

I really hope Web Docs are taken more seriously than this.

I finally got (took?) a chance to play with Web Components & Polymer on a cross-country flight yesterday. It's great! It feels natural(ish). It's an abstraction we needed. And now I don't feel like those years writing XBL weren't wasted...

Tone down the snark and fey pomposity.

90% of JQuery plugins don’t account for 90% of the use of JQuery plugins. The distribution of popularity is as top-heavy there as it is in the rest of the JS UI library landscape in which developers have agency to choose components on quality/price/etc. The implicit argument seems willfully ignorant of the recent history of JS libraries wherein successful libraries receive investment and scrutiny, raising their quality level. Indeed, the JS library world is a towering example of investment creating better results: the winners are near-universally compatible with progressive enhancement, a11y, and i18n.

I know you're trying to answer Jeremy's argument on jQuery plugins here but your thought here is a non sequitur. Jeremy's point is about plugins, not libraries. You start out talking about plugins, but then for some reason move on to libraries. Why? They're not really the same thing, especially in the context of this discussion.

I don't think it's true that jQuery plugins have had the same fate as libraries, as you imply (although I'm not sure if that's what you meant). Jeremy is spot-on: jQuery plugins are generally very big, bloated, and they have been customarily included as separate scripts, often loaded synchronously in the head of the document. That's basically the problem Jeremy was talking about (although I'm adding to his word) and I think he's rightfully concerned about the same problem happening with Web components.

Not to say that the components scene will end up just as bad. But I think it's fine to have some skeptical constructive criticism, seeing the prior paths we've paved.