*All, After watching multiple presentations from Google I/O 2017 on
Polymer 2, I was struck with an oppositional view of the “adopt the
platform” mantra that the presenters were espousing. While reflecting on
this reaction for a couple of days, I couldn’t help but reminisce of days
gone buy in this industry. It feels as though we keep reinventing the same
wheel, and expecting a different result. For those of us that have been
around long enough, we remember the failures of the past, and why they
failed. Specifically, I’m thinking of Java Applets, and all the time I
wasted writing them. While watching the presentations, I couldn’t help but
notice the almost constant promotion of ES6 classes, and their use within
Polymer 2. I also couldn’t miss the constant assumption that this will be
the standard, that should be adopted. The more I thought about these
annoyances, the more they continued to bother me, and it makes me question
if our industry will every make any real progress, and move past a single
set of ideas. Here are some very basic examples to help highlight my
point: A Basic Java Applet import java.applet.Applet;import
java.awt.Graphics;public class HelloWorld extends Applet { public void
paint(Graphics g) { g.drawString("Hello world!", 50, 25);
}}<HTML><HEAD><TITLE> A Simple Program </TITLE></HEAD><BODY>Here is the
output of my program:<APPLET CODE="HelloWorld.class" WIDTH=150
HEIGHT=25></APPLET></BODY></HTML> A Basic Polymer 2 Component <link
rel="import"
href="https://polygit.org/components/polymer/polymer-element.html";><script>
// Define the class for a new element called custom-element class
CustomElement extends Polymer.Element { static get is() { return
"custom-element"; } constructor() { super();
this.textContent = "I'm a custom-element."; } } // Register
the new element with the browser customElements.define(CustomElement.is,
CustomElement);</script> <!DOCTYPE html><html lang="en"> <head> <script
src="https://polygit.org/components/webcomponentsjs/webcomponents-loader.js";></script>
<link rel="import" href="custom-element.html"> </head> <body>
<custom-element></custom-element> </body></html> These feel eerily
similar to each other don’t they? I can’t help but think that a certain
style off code, primarily a certain form of OOPs is once again being forced
on the developer. Each time the presenters proudly proclaimed we use ES6
classes with inheritance and everything; I couldn’t help but cringe, then
follow it with a little chuckle. I mean really, we were doing this two
decades ago. With the ever increasing awareness of functional programming
styles and their benefits, it’s a little frustrating to feel like the
“platform” is forcing or promoting one style without an obvious open door
to other styles. A monolithic conceptual paradigm will certainly result in
a false barrier to innovation, and will force the creation of even more
abstractions over the “platform”. This just makes me want to stay as far
away from Polymer and web components as I can, which I know isn’t the
intention, but is the side effect of the message that was being presented.
I’m certain that I’m not alone in the assumptions that I’ve made, and that
negative feelings that were inadvertently created as a result of these
presentations. I’m sure that I’ve missed many of the finer details, and
I’m probably wrong on all accounts; However, I would love to learn how
the Polymer team, and the standards committees are planning to
interoperate, and even accommodate some of the ideas from Purescript, Elm,
ClojureScript, and others. At the end of the day it’s still all just some
form of JS, but I’m fearful that the tech community will continue to
recreate Java over and over again without regard to other advancements and
ideas. Many Thanks!-- Nick*
Follow Polymer on Google+: plus.google.com/107187849809354688692
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