Web components, as imagined in 1998 from a never-adopted specification:
Componentization is a powerful paradigm that allows component users to build applications using ‘building blocks’ of functionality without having to implement those building blocks themselves, or necessarily understand how the building works in fine detail. This method makes building complex applications easier by breaking them down into more manageable chunks and allowing the building blocks to be reused in other applications.
I still think of web components as a recent feature. The first time we even took a stab at explaining them here at CSS-Tricks was in a five-part series by Caleb Williams back in 2019...
Web components, as imagined in 1998 from a never-adopted specification:
Componentization is a powerful paradigm that allows component users to build applications using ‘building blocks’ of functionality without having to implement those building blocks themselves, or necessarily understand how the building works in fine detail. This method makes building complex applications easier by breaking them down into more manageable chunks and allowing the building blocks to be reused in other applications.
I still think of web components as a recent feature. The first time we even took a stab at explaining them here at CSS-Tricks was in a five-part series by Caleb Williams back in 2019. John Rhea followed that up with another six-part series in 2021. Not that long ago.
But nay! Jay Hoffman dug up the 1998 proposal cited above and shared it with me from a recent Igalia Chat (which is a great podcast, by the way) he had with Brian Kardell, Eric Meyer, and Jeremy Keith.
So, we’re really talking about a feature that’s been in the works for nearly 30 years. Style encapsulation is firmly a part of the time capsule that is web history.
It’s not that we need to know any of this information today, but the context is what’s key. It’s easy to overlook the early work put into something, especially when it comes to the web which is littered with arcane artifacts in disparate places.