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World Congress 2023 • Aug 11, 2023

Building a component library for modern challenges

Filip Rakowski

Opinionated component libraries are quietly killing your developer flow. Discover why treating UI elements as copy-paste snippets instead of rigid dependencies is the secret to scaling frontend architecture.

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#1 about 5 min

The struggle with modern component libraries

Why developers often end up writing nasty hacks to customize UI libraries after an initial period of acceleration.

#2 about 2 min

The main promise of UI component libraries

How reusable visual elements aim to increase productivity by eliminating repetitive frontend groundwork.

#3 about 5 min

Customization complexity in popular UI libraries

How tools like Material UI use extensive props and opinionated styling engines that steepen the learning curve.

#4 about 2 min

Challenges with complex components and global theming

The difficulty of slightly adjusting opinionated composite elements against rigid master abstractions.

#5 about 4 min

The myth of universal opinionated UI frameworks

Why heavily opinionated components fail to scale gracefully across projects of varying sizes and custom requirements.

#6 about 3 min

Impact of developer experience on productivity

How complex customizations disrupt cognitive flow and decrease overall developer productivity.

#7 about 3 min

The problem with upgradeable UI components

Why shipping visual elements as versioned packages creates abstraction flaws and risky breaking changes.

#8 about 2 min

Discovering the true value of UI acceleration

Realizing that immediate access to accessible and semantically correct primitives is the core benefit of a library.

#9 about 3 min

Adopting a copy-paste UI component architecture

How pasting raw utility class code removes artificial limitations and empowers infinite customizability.

#10 about 3 min

Scaling with base components and UI primitives

Combining globally customizable base elements with raw markup enables a versatile and reusable design system.

#11 about 3 min

Selecting versatile developer tools over popular opinions

Why simple and flexible developer tools are ultimately more reliable than highly opinionated industry defaults.

Matching moments

4:42 min

Balancing functionality and custom styling in UI development

Muhammad Ahsan Ayaz · World Congress 2021

4:23 min

Building a framework-agnostic design system with web components

Manuel Mauky · World Congress 2023

3:46 min

The rise of modern component-based frameworks and modular architecture

Sasha Shynkevich · LIVE

1:20 min

Exploring tooling choices for interactive UI components

Aurora Scharff Aurora Scharff · World Congress 2025

3:24 min

Introduction to building reusable Angular components

Valentine Awe · World Congress 2022

7:13 min

Optimizing component libraries for developers and product managers

Erica Rider +1 · World Congress 2021

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