Re: Minimum viable custom elements

One additional point, unrelated to accessibility: "is" also enables
piggybacking to special parser behavior of existing elements. For example,
I can extend <template> or <link>.

Here are some examples:

http://jsbin.com/xuheb/3/edit?html,output

https://blog.polymer-project.org/howto/2014/09/11/template-is-autobinding/

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On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 7:33 AM, Bruce Lawson <brucel@opera.com> wrote:

> On 29 January 2015 at 14:54, Steve Faulkner <faulkner.steve@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > I think being able to extend existing elements has potential value to
> > developers far beyond accessibility (it just so happens that
> accessibility
> > is helped a lot by re-use of existing HTML features.)
>
> I agree with everything Steve has said about accessibility. Extending
> existing elements also gives us progressive enhancement potential.
>
> Try https://rawgit.com/alice/web-components-demos/master/index.html in
> Safari or IE. The second column isn't functional because it's using
> brand new custom elements. The first column loses the web componenty
> sparkles but remains functional because it extends existing HTML
> elements.
>
> There's a similar story with Opera Mini, which is used by at least
> 250m people (and another potential 100m transitioning on Microsoft
> feature phones) because of its proxy architecture.
>
> Like Steve, I've no particularly affection (or enmity) towards the
> <input type="radio" is="luscious-radio"> syntax. But I'd like to know,
> if it's dropped, how progressive enhancement can be achieved so we
> don't lock out users of browsers that don't have web components
> capabilities, JavaScript disabled or proxy browsers. If there is a
> concrete plan, please point me to it. If there isn't, it's
> irresponsible to drop a method that we can see working in the example
> above with nothing else to replace it.
>
> I also have a niggling worry that this may affect the uptake of web
> components. When I led a dev team for a large UK legal site, there's
> absolutely no way we could have used a technology that was
> non-functional in older/proxy browsers.
>
> bruce
>
>