Very funny so see such an XML like syntax right after deciding to rip XML support out of Chrome. We're watching Google reinvent XSLT in real time, but now with tons of Javascript glue for some reason.
How would that work? I think you posted something on the github but I don't think what you're conceiving here is possible with this API. It just reroutes HTML insertions from the template to a different location, there is no duplication.
Very odd proposal. The new element syntax is perhaps the boldest choice. I wonder why they thought that was necessary. The idea of using this to defer rendering elements is also odd. So this would use a http long polling style? It really goes against several decades of progress in the web platform, where by now it's long established that you do this sort of thing with xhr. I'm amazed that they even put this in chrome, let along are saying things like "let sites use this new functionality right away even before this lands in other browsers" as if it's a sure thing.
> It really goes against several decades of progress in the web platform, where by now it's long established that you do this sort of thing with xhr.
Well yes, because no better technology existed. I don't see what kind if experience proved that writing a million imperative ad-hoc solutions for out-of-order loading would be better than a standardized solution.
How would you expect it to be in all the browsers before one of the browsers ships it first? We are seeking as much consensus as we can. It's an odd expectation.
> The new element syntax is perhaps the boldest choice
Probably to not break anything in older browsers which hasn't adopted it yet: new tag will be simply ignored, that's my thinking
> I'm amazed that they even put this in chrome, let along are saying things like "let sites use this new functionality right away even before this lands in other browsers"
It is behind the flag, like every other new proposal they made. Even though some dev would like to use it right now (for regular site visitors, not for self testing), she can't.
It's also a processing instruction rather than an element, which makes it possible to put it inside e.g. a <table> element and partially replace some rows.
I can't really tell how you'd even use this. Is it supposed to be some sort of micro-optimisation thing to do with how HTML is parsed (now you can download chunks out of order, presumably with some performance gains since it's browser native?).
When I saw the title I was hoping it was going to be a very simple React-like API for constantly updating parts of the DOM with maximum performance since the browser devs are now involved. It doesn't look like that's what this is at all. And all these years later I'm still wondering why browsers aren't implementing an API like that when it's been obvious for over a decade now that real-time DOM updates are a vital browser feature that needs to be performant, and that developers vastly prefer a declarative model to a procedural one. Why after 15-16 years are we still building 100 versions of the same abstraction in user-land to turn Element.append into "refresh these elements when this data changes"?
I scanned the page but didn't get -- why? What problem does it solve? Why is a browser in the business of taking care of content update? How is this better than existing solutions?
From what I read, think HTMX. HTML streams top to bottom so this proposal means out of order streaming of html things. So handles a lot of delivery/rendering stuff that's frontloaded with react/js/etc. It doesn't touch state management though.
Don't use chrome anymore but, I dunno if all browsers came to the table and unified behind something like this I'd be all about it. Most of the web stacks seem like some weird polished turd solution where we started frontloading more and more onto javascript, so I am amusingly not against this proposal. Feel like it could be a step into a better direction for web technologies, which feel like a very odd/lost ship in the world of software.
As far as I can see out-of-order streaming is only half the described functionality – there is also HTML streaming & revamped DOM parsing which does not have the positive signals that out-of-order streaming does:
Declarative partial updating "sets the stage for client-side includes." https://github.com/WICG/declarative-partial-updates
The linked article suggests a potential syntax:
That would transclude the content of /partials/footer.html in your HTML.
But the road ahead for this is still quite bumpy. Here's a good video from a year ago, talking through the obstacles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0NBcve0enY
Very funny so see such an XML like syntax right after deciding to rip XML support out of Chrome. We're watching Google reinvent XSLT in real time, but now with tons of Javascript glue for some reason.
Is anyone talking about any web page being a zip bomb even without JS turned on?
How would that work? I think you posted something on the github but I don't think what you're conceiving here is possible with this API. It just reroutes HTML insertions from the template to a different location, there is no duplication.
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Very odd proposal. The new element syntax is perhaps the boldest choice. I wonder why they thought that was necessary. The idea of using this to defer rendering elements is also odd. So this would use a http long polling style? It really goes against several decades of progress in the web platform, where by now it's long established that you do this sort of thing with xhr. I'm amazed that they even put this in chrome, let along are saying things like "let sites use this new functionality right away even before this lands in other browsers" as if it's a sure thing.
The new element syntax is needed to signify DOM ranges that may cross the boundaries of HTML element trees.
Jake Archibald at Mozilla has a good video about this. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yARSOcqOWvY
Oh nooooooo are you kidding? That's beyond horrific.
That's really really really awful
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I am puzzled then: so what would happen if the template will replace this island form your example with markup without closing `</em>`?
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> It really goes against several decades of progress in the web platform, where by now it's long established that you do this sort of thing with xhr.
Well yes, because no better technology existed. I don't see what kind if experience proved that writing a million imperative ad-hoc solutions for out-of-order loading would be better than a standardized solution.
How would you expect it to be in all the browsers before one of the browsers ships it first? We are seeking as much consensus as we can. It's an odd expectation.
The odd thing is the non conditional "before it lands" rather than "if it lands".
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> The new element syntax is perhaps the boldest choice
Probably to not break anything in older browsers which hasn't adopted it yet: new tag will be simply ignored, that's my thinking
> I'm amazed that they even put this in chrome, let along are saying things like "let sites use this new functionality right away even before this lands in other browsers"
It is behind the flag, like every other new proposal they made. Even though some dev would like to use it right now (for regular site visitors, not for self testing), she can't.
It's also a processing instruction rather than an element, which makes it possible to put it inside e.g. a <table> element and partially replace some rows.
Wtf?
I can't really tell how you'd even use this. Is it supposed to be some sort of micro-optimisation thing to do with how HTML is parsed (now you can download chunks out of order, presumably with some performance gains since it's browser native?).
When I saw the title I was hoping it was going to be a very simple React-like API for constantly updating parts of the DOM with maximum performance since the browser devs are now involved. It doesn't look like that's what this is at all. And all these years later I'm still wondering why browsers aren't implementing an API like that when it's been obvious for over a decade now that real-time DOM updates are a vital browser feature that needs to be performant, and that developers vastly prefer a declarative model to a procedural one. Why after 15-16 years are we still building 100 versions of the same abstraction in user-land to turn Element.append into "refresh these elements when this data changes"?
[dead]
I scanned the page but didn't get -- why? What problem does it solve? Why is a browser in the business of taking care of content update? How is this better than existing solutions?
From what I read, think HTMX. HTML streams top to bottom so this proposal means out of order streaming of html things. So handles a lot of delivery/rendering stuff that's frontloaded with react/js/etc. It doesn't touch state management though.
Don't use chrome anymore but, I dunno if all browsers came to the table and unified behind something like this I'd be all about it. Most of the web stacks seem like some weird polished turd solution where we started frontloading more and more onto javascript, so I am amusingly not against this proposal. Feel like it could be a step into a better direction for web technologies, which feel like a very odd/lost ship in the world of software.
> How is this better than existing solutions?
For one - will not need to write JS or bundle a JS library to do this if it has native platform support.
The WICG explainers do a somewhat better job than this article.
https://github.com/WICG/declarative-partial-updates
https://github.com/WICG/declarative-partial-updates/blob/mai...
Is this a Google-only proposal? Has Mozilla provided their thoughts on the matter?
When you have questions like this, the best places to check are the "standards positions" Github repositories for Mozilla and WebKit.
https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/1369
Mozilla hasn't officially weighed in, but one decision maker (hsivonen) did vote in favor of it.
Apple WebKit is officially in favor of it, as of just a few days ago.
https://github.com/WebKit/standards-positions/issues/628
As far as I can see out-of-order streaming is only half the described functionality – there is also HTML streaming & revamped DOM parsing which does not have the positive signals that out-of-order streaming does:
https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/1370
https://github.com/WebKit/standards-positions/issues/629
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We've worked on the design closely together with Mozilla/Apple folks and with multiple external partners that want to use it.
So htmx?
Definitely an inspiration but less opinionated.
But native