Feature Request: angular.component helper

[johnlindquist]

Please see this demo: https://jsbin.com/yixote/11/edit?html,js,output

Thanks to "bindToController" in angular 1.3, we're able to create a much simpler api for building components.

Just as "angular.service" helps us to easily build an "angular.provider", I strongly believe a simplified "angular.component" could help us easily build components with "angular.directive".

I'm sure everyone will have plenty of feedback :)

[caitp]

I feel like it's adding another way to do the same thing, which I tend to not like doing, buuuuut, maybe.

@petebacondarwin what do you think?

[johnlindquist]

@caitp does anyone use angular.provider? Nope, the use angular.factory or angular.service. I think it's time for angular.directive to get the same treatment :)

[caitp]

people use angular.provider if they want to be able to operate on the object meaningfully within config blocks :> anyways, my personal opinion is that we sort of offer too many flavours of koolaid already, it's much simpler for people if there's just one way to do everything.

On the other hand, the directive API is ridiculously complicated, so maybe some sugar would be useful for it. Lets see what people think

[pkozlowski-opensource]

IMO convince shortcuts are cool / important but I would rather not do it in 1.3 for 2 reasons:

• learning directives is already hard and introducing yet another approach will only further confuse people. On the other hand guys who know what they are doing are probably having convenience shortcuts;
• component is kind of bad name / timing given Angular2 effort.

I'm not opposed but I would prefer that we don't do it. My private, personal opinion :-)

[johnlindquist]

@petebacondarwin I agree with your points, but those of us building convenience shortcuts would love to standardize on these shortcuts for the community, teaching, etc. Having something blessed by the angular team would be wonderful, but we can figure out something else if not.

[petebacondarwin]

@johnlindquist - hey I haven't even commented yet!

I think this would defeat a strong reason to migrate to v2!!

But seriously while it would be nice to make directive development easier I agree that 1.3 is probably not the place.

From what I see this helper would change

mod.directive ('cmpnt', function () {
  return {
    controllerAs: 'cmpnt',
    link: linkFn,
    scope: scopeDef,
    template: template,
    controller: ControllerFn
  };
});

Into

mod.component ('cmpnt', template, scopeDef, controller, linkFn);

While it certainly has fewer chars I am not convinced this is much more grokable. Also as a general rule we are trying to move away from optional positional params.

Personally I don't think this should go in the core for 1.x but if there was large community pressure we could look at improving the defaults for the DDO in a 1.4 release.

[johnlindquist]

@petebacondarwin sorry, I thought @pkozlowski-opensource was you :)

1. grokable - I would argue that:

mod.component('card', template);

is _much_ more grokable than

mod.directive('card', function(){
return {
template: template
}
})

The goal is to lessen the barrier between creating directives and cover the 90% scenario. Also, if the focus is on injecting providers into the controller (and not the directive), the factory function (the second param in .directive) just becomes cruft.

1. params - I totally agree on position params. If you want lots of {options}, use .directive(), if you want to cover the 90% scenario, use .component() or whatever you want to name it.
2. 1.3 - Agreed, 1.3 is probably the wrong place, but the Angular community now has years of experience under its belt and it feels to me like it's time to start wrapping some of the most common tasks with more helpful APIs and revisit how we introduce newcomers to Angular.

Anyway, this all stems from the larger community sentiment that "angular is hard". I teach angular all the time and I've seen people get super confused over what should be the easiest concepts because of the API. I know angular is easier than it lets on, but I think a simpler API blessed by the angular team would go a long way to convince everyone else :P.

Obviously none of this is necessary and it doesn't add any functionality, but that doesn't mean it's not worth it!

/end rant?

[petebacondarwin]

In many ways I agree with you John. The complicated directive api is a major factor in the drive to v2 where the api is completely reworked to get away from this unnecessary complexity.

I also note that most of the service confusion comes from the difference between service and factory rather than with provider.

The question is where is the right place to make the improvement.

[johnlindquist]

@petebacondarwin are you at Google HQ now? I'm coming over next month or so to talk with the guys about doing new videos for the homepage, etc. Would be fun/constructive to play around with simple APIs, even if they land in a different project.

[petebacondarwin]

I am as always in London, UK. Give me a shout when you are next over this side of the pond