Is the term "web component" useful? Or does it simultaneously obfuscate the power of the related APIs (custom elements, Shadow DOM, etc.) and confuse their intent/meaning in a way that leaves developers frustrated? It's an interesting argument, and I can agree with the need to rebrand or stop calling these things "web components", but I'm not sure "web component APIs" is actually any better 🤔
On the core issue with what we have today:
Web component APIs can be useful when creating components, but they are not the complete answer. Components should be able to do a lot more than what web component APIs are capable of today.
On why calling them web components is potentially problematic:
the term “web components” creates unnecessary and avoidable confusion among folks who already have a preexisting notion of what components are. When they find that “web components” can’t do what they expect components to be able to do, they’ll complain about how limiting these APIs are and how “web components have failed”.
These are “web component APIs”. It’s easy to think of that term as “APIs for creating web components” but it would be more appropriate to instead think of them as “web APIs for creating components (among other things)“.
