ShadowDOM, and by extension web components are great for providing an extended set of HTML ‘native’ components. Let’s say your company has multiple frontend SPAs with different technologies (angular, react, svelte,…) they could all use the same set of company custom components, like a custom datepicker, or fancy selectbox.
With webcomponents you are pretty close to the “metal”. If you know how to write good vanilla JavaScript, you can take most of that knowledge into webcomponents. You only need to learn the custom components lifecycle, and shadowDOM, which is knowledge about web-standards. With other frameworks you need to learn template syntaxing, how state propagates, how the compiler works, etc etc. Lot of that knowledge might be obsolete in 10 years.
Which isn’t to say it can’t be worth it. Learning multiple frameworks and libraries is also very helpful to skill up because you are learning about different concepts and implementations.
Another advantage of web components is the syntax is similar enough to Java (especially with JavaDocs) switching between coding a Java spring backend and a Web component based front end is doesn’t need as much of a mental context switch.
I think the (interesting) output we see as the different UI is a side-effect of the actual research mentioned at the end of the video: how can we teach everyone how to do spatial programming, just like we teach everyone to write and calculate. The end result is not a finished product, but new knowledge about how to spread this new knowledge to everyone.
I don’t even think that saying stupid and shallow comments speaks to the person who said it. Don’t we all say stupid and shallow things every day? It takes serious effort to filter thoughts in such a calculated way so it’s always the “perfect” thing to say. It might be even neurotic to constantly try this. We are all failed, but I’d like to think just most of us did not really had bad intentions. Maybe just a bad moment. Or some bad insight. :)
What’s killer about that? I order food once every 2 weeks, I like to browse the different options myself. Almost all the ‘killer’ AI functions are already here: smarter photo retouching, auto-replies, searching, and text summaries with some reading comprehension to ask questions. These things I use daily.
The only thing I’d like is a better integration with ALL actions possible on my phone.
You do remember the dotcom bubble, right? :D
Something can change the world, but still be a bubble.
They are promising AGI, super intelligence or the singularity in less than 10 years. That's the bubble.
Counterpoint: no semantics is better than wrong semantics. If a screenreader thinks your layout is a (data)table, it makes your visually impaired users sad.
Most of our software is bland because it is about practicality and functionality. A UI should do a lot more things than to be expressive. Being expressive is very low on the list. Reliability, accessibility and recognisability are very high on that list. Expressiveness also tends to fight accessibility and recognisability.
This also goes for other design fields. As a (stupid) example: I can design all kinds of weird wonderful stairs in public places, that will give the place some charm. But the best one will be with a more boring ramp of with about 5degrees of incline, because that's the wheelchair-accessible one.
Style is not the only form of expression. Adapting a tool to your workflow is also a form of expression. I'm surprised that with all of their resources, tech companies still build software that completely ignore relatively common use cases like hiking.
There are plenty of apps with maps for hiking. Hell, I use QGis when I go in long-paddle boarding expeditions (a general purpose GIS environment). I'm fine with letting the big monopolies handle the 90% case of going from A to B as quickly and efficiently as possible. And I'm very, very grateful for the other 10% which is enjoyable and in the realm of citizen agency.
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