The Failed Promise of Web Components

> Using a custom element from the directory often needs to be preceded by a ritual of npm flugelhorn, import clownshoes, build quux, all completely unapologetically because “here is my truckload of dependencies, yeah, what”. Many steps are even omitted, likely because they are “obvious”. Often, you wade through the maze only to find the component doesn’t work anymore, or is not fit for your purpose.

That is so true. The "unapologetically" thing is important. I see this all the time. There's often a fair bit of 'tude, where I am looked at with condescension, for not knowing something "obvious."

The fig tree pic is perfect.

EDIT: Removed phrase that was possibly corrosive to the narrative.

This is a huge red flag for systems design to me. Whenever and whereever I've seen this abundance of assumed implicit knowledge instead of documented or introspectable configuration, the systems have invariably been excessively difficult and/or time-consuming to troubleshoot once in operations. This is overlooked and hand-waved away when the system is the new shiny, but once it becomes productionalized "legacy", it becomes a huge headache to leadership that appears to them as constant instability sucking up everyone's time on fire fighting instead of innovating more new shiny.

Here's to hoping better dependency management like from the Nix folks makes it into the mainstream platforms.