Polymer is a library that helps you build elements and apps out of web components. Web Components are a cutting edge set of new standards that allow developers to extend the HTML vocabulary with their own custom elements. Because Web Components are designed to be a new primitive for the browser, it means that they’re very powerful but also very low level and working with them requires a fair bit of code. Polymer makes it easier to work Web Components by “sugaring” the syntax. It reduces the amount of boilerplate code you need to write, and adds a declarative style so creating Web Components is as easy as writing HTML.
Initially this project started as an experiment, with making and clubbing all the polyfills to bring the functionality of webcomponents to all browsers. Which in sometime became a library full of great features like data binding, attribute change watchers, automatic node finding, etc. But along with this there were many performance heads and had developer concerns like theming, complexity.
Since the 0.5 “Developer Preview” release, it has been re-written from the ground up, focusing on cross-browser performance while keeping the developer-friendly ergonomics.
Polymer 1.0 has been rebuilt from the ground up for speed and efficiency. The new, leaner core library makes it easier than ever to make fast, beautiful, and interoperable web components. The new library is:
And it’s ready to be used in production applications. The news was announced via a blog post by Taylor Savage, Product Manager, Polymer.
In the news, Taylor wrote:
“Today we released the 1.0 version of the Polymer library. Polymer is a new way of thinking about building web applications - a sugaring layer on top of Web Components, making it easy for you to create interoperable custom elements. These elements can then be put together to create app-like immersive experiences on the web.”
In addition to the library, there is new “product lines” of elements, all updated to work with the 1.0 release of the library. The element product lines built by the Polymer team include:
Major new and updated features since the 0.5 “Developer Preview” release include:
There is also a Polymer Starter Kit with ready-to-use boilerplate, and an end-to-end toolchain to use from development through production deployment.
If you haven't used Polymer before, it's time to try it out. If you haven't tried it recently, time to take another look. There are lot of resources already there on Polymer Project page.
Here is a series of podcasts by Rob Dodson to learn about polymer - Polycasts.
If you have already worked on polymer and you need to migrate your work to 1.0 here is a tool for you, also there is a Polymer Migration Guide.