Benefits of Lightning Web Components Over Lightning Components

Salesforce has introduced a new platform called Lightning Web Components (LWC) in

December 2018

Lightning Web Components takes Salesforce lightning platform one step closer to using

web standards for UI development. Those new to salesforce who are familiar with basic

frontend language such as Visualforce Pages can directly jump into LWC without having

an in-depth understanding of Aura Components (Lightning Components). LWC uses

modern Java Script Frameworks – this means any non-salesforce developer who is

familiar with Node.JS or React can easily be able to code in LWC. Read more about

Salesforce Lightning Development

Since LWC has come into existence we can now create Lightning components in

the following ways: 1. Aura components– which are also known as lightning components. 2. Lightning Web Components- the newest way to create lightning components.

First thing we will know about what web components are. Web Components consist

of four separate technologies that are used together: 1. Custom Elements:The HTML elements with custom templates, tag names like and

behaviours are made with a set of JavaScript APIs. HTML Living Standard specification has definitions of these Custom Elements.

2. Shadow DOM:We use this for isolating CSS and JavaScript which could be like. Living Standard DOM specification has the definitions of this.

3. HTML templates:User-defined templates in HTML are rendered only when called upon. HTML Living Standard specification has the definition of the tag.

4. ES Modules:The ES Modules specification defines the inclusion and reuse of JS documents in a standard based, modular, performant way.

Before diving in LWC, we should know about JavaScript Origin.

Usage of Modern JavaScript

Lightning Web Components JavaScript support includes:

• ECMAScript

o ES6 (ECMAScript 2015)

o ES7 (ECMAScript 2016)

o ES8 (ECMAScript 2017)—excluding Shared Memory and Atomics

o ES9 (ECMAScript 2018)—including only Object Spread Properties (not Object Rest

Properties)

• Classes

• Modules

• Promises

• Decorators

• Web Components

• Custom Elements

• Shadow DOM

• Templates and slots

For a Business user, Sales reps who uses the Lightning Experience on the daily basis

for their business process, they don’t find any difference between the LWC and Aura

Component. Behind the scenes, developers can notice lot of difference between Aura

Framework pattern and Web Standards.

Why do you go for LWC instead of existing Aura Components?

• Easy to Learn: LWC is basically takes the form through native web standards that is in

the browser. It means that no added abstraction layer like Aura Framework or any other

framework, we only need standard JavaScript to develop.

• Better Performance: Because of the no added abstraction layer, LWC is likely to

render faster than aura components since performance is important to deliverability.

• Faster loading sites: Like lightning, LWC is faster in loading the developed

components than Aura Components and is lightweight framework which is built on web

standards.

• More Standards, less proprietary: LWC has built-in browser security features from

Web Components Standards, so the usage of out-of-the-box is more and less of

customization. We all know that Aura is proprietary so with LWC, the more we know

about web standards; more we’ll have the skill that can be used in other technologies as

well.

• Common Components/Service Components: We can now write components that

have no User Interface in LWC, and those components can be reused in other

components which are more efficient than Static Resources.

• Easier to ramp for developers: No additional framework is needed to learn in order to

develop LWC and hence transition for the developers is a lot easier.

• Better security, better testing and better browser compatibility: With LWC, CSS,

Script and DOM Isolation are better and has more limited event scope. With each of

these we have more consistency in designing Components. LWC also supports Two-

way data binding with which we can coordinate how data moves between Components

Reusing Aura Framework for LWC Development:

We all know about Lightning Data Service (LDS) in Lightning Components. It is

basically used to create, update, read and delete a record without any using Apex

Code. Similarly, LWC can also leverage LDS by accessing data and metadata from all

Standard and Custom objects.

Import from ‘lightning/uiRecordApi’

• createRecord(recordInput)

• updateRecord(recordInput)

• deleteCreateRecord(recordInput)

• getRecord(recordInput)

LWC provides a layer of Salesforce services on top of the core stack which includes

User Interface APIs, base lightning components(LC) and Lightning Data Service(LDS).

We can compose Aura components from Lightning web components, but can’t do the

vice versa of this. Learn more about: Salesforce Communities Implementation

Interoperability between Lightning Web Components and Lightning Components

• Aura and LWC can be able to communicate using Public API’s and Events.

• LWC can be embedded inside Aura Components, but Aura Components cannot be

embedded inside LWC.

• To dig deep into this topic, Salesforce has provided a great article on

this Interoperability.

Syntax Differences can be as follows:

Conclusion

If your Planning to Migrate your Org from Classic to Lightning, then you should go for

LWC to build custom pages as per better performance. As it provides great UI

Performance on browsers which enhances the latest features of JavaScript. Every

Salesforce developer should aware of latest releases provided by Salesforce related to

LWC and its modern web Standards, implement them accordingly into their existing

Business Process, Educate and Suggest customers regarding this new feature.