
Ask HN: Did anyone tried Polymer? - NicoJuicy
I currently like a lot of what i&#x27;ve seen with Polymer. Although Google with videocasts and all, i miss some examples except the TodoMVC example and the chat app.<p>Has anyone done some &quot;deeper&quot; work in Polymer? What did you like and didn&#x27;t like? I have done some basic apps, but i seriusly miss &quot;grownup&quot;&#x2F;&quot;complete&quot; solutions as an example in it.<p>The changes from 0.5 to 1.0 aren&#x27;t always that clear in the docs also.. There&#x27;s a lot of Googling required to find the correct answers :(
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wener
I tried Polymer by use it in my project, it's a new way to do the web thing,as
the Polymer summit said, we need think in Polymer.There is a lot use case[1]
out there.BTW, all the doc in the code, Polymer core is very small, you can
read all in one hour, after you read the core, you will feel the elements is
very familiar if you look in code.

[1]: [http://expandjs.com/demo](http://expandjs.com/demo)
[https://www.materialup.com/](https://www.materialup.com/)
[https://www.polymer-project.org/summit](https://www.polymer-
project.org/summit)

~~~
NicoJuicy
I had some serious gotchas that weren't always referenced in the
documentation, but in the github repo. Although it seemed more logical to be
at the docs...

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PopeOfNope
This chart[0] is why. No IE, Safari or Firefox. It's basically only fully
supported by Chrome and Opera. Chrome may have the biggest piece of the pie
these days, but every other framework supports all of them, so why take the
risk that 30-60%[1] of your users can't use your app?

[0]: [https://www.polymer-
project.org/0.5/resources/compatibility....](https://www.polymer-
project.org/0.5/resources/compatibility.html) [1]: Depending on what numbers
you use.

~~~
spankalee
This is the chart that matters:
[https://github.com/WebComponents/webcomponentsjs#browser-
sup...](https://github.com/WebComponents/webcomponentsjs#browser-support)

Polymer, via the web components polyfills, supports IE10+, Safari 7+, Chrome,
Firefox, and Android Browser.

The chart you linked to is for _native_ web components support, which is
better because it's faster and more spec compliant, but not necessary. The
polyfills are quite good.

(btw, you're linking to the 0.5 docs, the 1.0 doc is here:
[https://www.polymer-
project.org/1.0/resources/compatibility....](https://www.polymer-
project.org/1.0/resources/compatibility.html) )

~~~
PopeOfNope
And why would I bother with the increased load time and complexity when I can
use a framework that's natively supported? "Because Pollyfills" isn't a good
enough argument.

~~~
spankalee
The work that the polyfills do: custom element registration and lifecycle, DOM
composition, style encapsulation, is the same work that other frameworks do,
they just do it in a proprietary way, and usually in a way that's incompatible
with normal DOM usage. Current frameworks are no more "natively supported"
than the polyfills anyway - it's all just code using the DOM.

Given that all browser vendors are implementing Shadow DOM now, and are very
close to starting on custom elements, choosing the polyfill route means that
in a couple of years you will be able to have less load time because the
polyfills are unnecessary. It also means that your elements will be compatible
with the ecosystem of web components, not just the proprietary component
system of whichever framework you chose.

Plus, the model is actually quite simple: custom elements are just elements.
That's a big deal when using other libraries.

But you shifted reasoning between your comments. First you claimed that
Polymer wasn't supported on any browser but Chrome, which is false (though I
do think that the compatibility page isn't clear enough), then you question
whether polyfills are worth it. As always, if you're looking for reasons to
not use something, I'm sure you'll find them - that goes for any library or
framework.

~~~
PopeOfNope
Look, the question was "why don't more people use Polymer." That's the answer:
it's not natively supported, or not perceived to be natively supported, or
whatever. I work with companies who make the decision to use one framework
over another all the time. That chart inevitably makes an appearance and
polymer gets rejected immediately.

If you feel strongly enough about the framework, get them better marketing.

