Photoshop in the browser? That needs JS.
But the reality is, most of what we build is either static HTML or mostly just forms and page reloads. We can build the web that way by default, and progressively enhance a more Ajaxy experience on top of it.
The result is an app that’s faster to load, faster to run, and less prone to breaking… without much additional work for your developers.
We’re all tired of: write some code, come back to it in six months, try to make it do more, and find the whole project is broken until you upgrade everything.
Progressive enhancement allows you to do the opposite: write some code, come back to it in six months, and it’s doing more than the day you wrote it!
So many of the problems and challenges of working with Web Components just fall away when you ditch the shadow DOM and use them as a light wrapper for progressive enhancement.
Some lovely HTML web components—perfect for progressive enhancement!
This is a great thought exercise in progressive enhancement …that Scott then turns into a real exercise!
Here’s Clearleft’s approach to browser support. You can use it too (it’s CC-licensed).
Here’s how I interpret the top-level guidance in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
If a browser feature can be used as a progressive enhancement, you don’t have to wait for all browsers to support it.
Naming custom elements, naming attributes, the single responsibility principle, and communicating across components.
You might want to use `display: contents` …maybe.