Microsoft Edge Ditches React for Web Components, Reducing JavaScript Dependency
By [Your Name], Senior Journalist and Editor
October 26, 2024
In a move aimed at enhancing browser responsiveness, Microsoft’s Edge team has unveiled WebUI 2.0, a significant shift away from Reactcomponents in favor of native Web Components. This strategic change prioritizes a markup-first architecture, minimizing JavaScript reliance and ultimately leading to a smoother user experience.
To delve deeper into the motivations and goals behind WebUI 2.0, I spoke with Andrew Ritz, the lead of the Microsoft Edge team.
Understanding Web Components
Before we dive into the specifics, let’sbriefly define Web Components. As explained by the WebComponents.org community website, they are a set of Web platform APIs that allow you to create custom, reusable HTML elements encapsulated for use in web applications.
Ritz emphasizes this Webdevelopment paradigm to his team: Whenever you’re about to develop a new control and you’re thinking about writing JavaScript, stop and ask a senior engineer if you can solve it with HTML and CSS.
Why Edge Abandoned React
Ritz shared that his team aims to transition approximately 50% ofEdge’s existing React-based Web UI to Web Components by the end of this year. The driving force behind this initiative, according to Ritz, stems from a combination of internal and external requests for improvements to the Chromium project.
We adopted the React framework and, frankly, we probably used it in the worstpossible way, Ritz admitted.
The Case of Excel Web App
A prime example is the Excel Web app, which leverages Canvas elements. A key challenge arose: How do we improve the performance of Canvas? HTML elements allow for dynamic drawing through scripting, often implemented with JavaScript. To address such needs, Ritzsought a more proactive approach while tackling the performance bottlenecks of Web applications.
So, we went through the company and looked at all the places where we were using Web technologies—all the internal Web UIs—and they were just painfully slow, Ritz explained. The culprit? React. We realized thattheir performance was pretty bad.
The Shift to Web Components
Web Components offer several advantages over React, including:
- Reduced JavaScript: This leads to faster page loading and improved performance.
- Enhanced Reusability: Web Components are modular and can be easily reused across different projects.
*Improved Accessibility: Web Components are inherently more accessible than React components.
The Future of WebUI 2.0
The transition to Web Components is a significant step for Microsoft Edge. It signifies a commitment to improving performance and user experience while embracing the future of web development. By reducing JavaScript dependency and adopting a moremodular approach, WebUI 2.0 paves the way for a faster, more efficient, and more accessible web.
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