dom VS domdiff

in plain htmx, you can target an area that doesn't disrupt a playing video (e.g. the comments box appending to the comments) or you can use a morphing algorithm that disrupts the DOM less.

i have my own morphing algorithm (and a corresponding htmx plugin that allows you to use it) called idiomorph:

https://github.com/bigskysoftware/idiomorph/

i've also been working with the chrome team to get a feature added they are calling "atomic moves":

https://github.com/whatwg/dom/issues/1255

this would allow us to move elements around in the DOM without losing things like play state or focus or whatever

very excited for this last idea, I think it will be a huge boon for the web in general, not just for htmx

What I said in my previous comment is observably true. Try making a demo where it isn't.

> A DOM node is a living mutable thing, but the JavaScript object representing that node is not.

The JavaScript object is mutable. The first example in the article shows this.

> That is also why a node list is not an array.

Modern APIs on the web return platform arrays (eg JavaScript arrays). https://webidl.spec.whatwg.org/#js-sequence - here's where the WebIDL spec specifies how to convert a sequence to a JavaScript array.

I'm fully aware of NodeList. There's a reason the spec calls them "old-style" https://dom.spec.whatwg.org/#old-style-collections

> I can understand how this is confusing if you have never operated without a framework, but otherwise it’s really straightforward

Sighhhhhh. I've been a web developer for over 20 years, and spent a decade on the Chrome team working on web platform features. Most of my career has been on the low-level parts of the platform.

Could it be possible that people are disagreeing with you, not because they're stupid, but because you're in the wrong? Please try to be open minded. Try creating some demos that test your opinions.

Domenic Denicola (the man who ruined promises) probably will as well.

https://github.com/whatwg/dom/issues/67

I'm pretty sure it is, since I get "TypeError: nodes[i].parentNode.href is undefined" and "TypeError: $mainmenu.parent(...).get(...) is undefined" errors on both Pale Moon and LibreWolf. Which is part of Shadow/DOM, and originated from google (https://hacks.mozilla.org/2015/06/the-state-of-web-components/). Not sure when this particular thing was introduced, since it's a "living standard"/experimental feature (https://dom.spec.whatwg.org/).

JSX chose to align names to the DOM spec [0]. Same for htmlFor and friends.

[0] https://dom.spec.whatwg.org/#ref-for-dom-element-classname%E...

You can see why I say this here: https://dom.spec.whatwg.org

The product logos in this article's cover image include different languages and technologies some of which are still relevant for web development today: HTML, CSS, JavaScript / ES / TypeScript (and the DOM), SVG, PDF, PHP, SQL (mySQL, MariaDB), mongoDB, Node.js (the most successful server-side implementation of JavaScript so far).

Thanks for the shout-out! I think I mention this in the talk, but note that YMMV. I designed that benchmark as a kind of "worst-case scenario" where shadow DOM / scoped styles really show a benefit. Depending on your CSS rules, DOM size, and amount of thrashing, the perf benefit could be small to large.

Also, it's still possible to shoot yourself in the foot, especially if you have a large/complex stylesheet repeated across multiple shadow roots. (Not because of the repetition – that's optimized in browsers [1] – but rather because of the number of DOM nodes affected.)

That said, I still think the perf benefits of shadow DOM have been undersung. And Declarative Shadow DOM makes it way more useful.

[1]: https://github.com/whatwg/dom/issues/831#issuecomment-585489...

We luh-luh-luv you! They gestated and nurtured the spec. They fought over bike sheds! All for us!!

> There are lighter-weight shadow dom frameworks out there (than Vue/React/Angular) so why would you want to write one yourself?

You can even avoid a shadow DOM entirely:

https://github.com/WebReflection/domdiff

https://github.com/WebReflection/uhtml

If by faster you mean faster than React I think there is evidence it can be. The author of the issue writes lots of dom utility and rendering libraries and I believe domdiff is more or less what he describes in the post:

https://github.com/WebReflection/domdiff

You can find it placed way above React in the usual JS rendering benchmarks:

https://rawgit.com/krausest/js-framework-benchmark/master/we...

Now it's not entirely clear whether these benchmarks convey something meaningful except for maybe the point that most frameworks are quite fast. That being said I think it's developer experience that really stands to improve. Thinking of view as a pure function of state was a great innovation, but existing implementations can end up fracturing the view into virtual doms and non-virtual. Then you end up with problems like D3 and React not coexisting.

I feel like I heard something from the lit-html folks that a long term aspiration was to integrate some learnings from the project into chrome, but I haven't been able to find where again.

There has been a trend in JS with libraries becoming idiomatic to the language to later have the issues they targeted be addressed natively (a la JQuery).

In general, I definitely appreciate your point about adding complexity to the platform, but I think when it comes to web technologies that ship has long sailed. I really see it as an opportunity to bring a lot of simplicity, chiefly filling that void that's birthed a billion JS frameworks.

Thanks for the thoughtful comment.