By enhancing native HTML instead of replacing it, we can provide a solid baseline experience, and add progressive enhancement as the cherry on top.
Great article by Paul Herbert of Oregon’s Cloud Four. Using a web component to enhance an existing HTML element such as <textarea> (rather than always creating a custom element from scratch) feels very lean, resilient and maintainable.
Off the top of my head I could see this being a nice approach for other custom form controls.
Zach Leatherman also took this approach with the <details> element in quite exciting ways and is using it in production on Netlify’s marketing websites. I’m a bit cautious of jumping on that one just yet, though, because it’s plays more fast-and-loose with the intended purpose of the element and in so doing probably might present some accessibility issues. Still really interesting though.