Polymer is not yet ready for production use according to the author. While Polymer allows creating responsive web apps using one codebase, the author cites several issues including unstable APIs between versions, bugs in the vulcanize compilation process, and poor performance of polyfills in older browsers. However, the author acknowledges benefits like automatic responsive design and provided elements for common patterns. They conclude Polymer is too unstable yet to use in production but may be worth trying to prepare for the future of the web.

1. Developing webapp using Polymer :
is it ready for production? or not?
Jeongkyu Shin
Lablup Inc.

2. • From XHTML to WebApp
• XSLT / Google Gear
• HTML5 and eternal war
• webcomponent

3. Webcomponents
• HTML imports
• Custom element to extend basic DOM
• Templates
• Shadow DOM
• “Polyfill”
• Polymer by Google Inc.
• x-tag by Mozilla

4. • Web “App”
• Native Custom DOM element support

5. http://lablup.com source

7. Problem?

8. –Old phrase
“Devil is in the details.”

9. 1. It is too google to be true
• Polymer-based project since March 2015.
• 0.5 - 0.8rc2 - 0.9 and
• We gave up (twice) because it is too hard to
migrate between each version
• Specs changes like fluid:
• OK. Let’s believe one more time!
• And our quest begins…

11. • How hard?
• Original 0.5 components are unusable on 1.0
• And is it ready?
• Polymer main site is still on 0.5
• Many core functions are still missing
• e.g. iron-form-behavior with paper-toggle

12. 2. Vulcanize
• Polymer cannot be used as production without
vulcanize process
• “Compile process” for polymer library

13. • It does not work as intended:
• Generates broken HTML: did not work with IE
• Redundant codes in vulcanized HTML
• Different CSS result between browsers after
compile
• Still too fluid: specs are changing every week
• We had to make our own patched compiler /
script to work with IE

14. • And how big is it?
• ~600k for common paper elements
• —inline-css —inline-script option
Code Vulcanize minimize crisper

15. 3. Polyfill has to fill the
ocean
• 79 / 47 / 34 / 9
• The number of page
rendering during
HTMLimports
IE Safari Firefox Chrome
79 47 34 9
*Tested with our project (without vulcanize)

16. Pros?!
• One code can rule them all
• Polymer+electron = Desktop web app
• Automatic (and inevitable) responsive design = Mobile web app
• Provides
• iron elements (HTML form / behavior elements)
• paper element (HTML elements with material design)
• gold element (special elements for e-commerce)
• google element and
• platinum element (for web app features like push / local storage)

17. Final word
• It’s too google to be solid yet
• Vulcanizer issues
• Rendering issues

18. Final word
• Swim in the ocean. DO NOT swim in the sand
ocean.
• However, if you prepare for the future web, try it.
• And we are working on it.

19. Have a good day :)