Remove NgController and replace with applicationFactory root object

[mhevery]

NgController only makes sense for the top-most scope since there is not an implicit component. All children are created in a form of a component which has its own Controller per #914. Because NgController relies on publishAs it is not compatible with the #914 change. So we can bypass this by moving it to applicationFactory

applicationFactory()
  ..rootContextType(HelloWorld)
  ..run();

This is essentially equivalent to

applicationFactory()
  ..module(new Module()..type(Object, HelloWorld))
  ..run();

This way the RootScope's context is set to HelloWorld instance.

[zoechi]

So in future Angular applications a controller can only be the root controller or a component, is that right?

I don't have yet enough experience with Angular to be able to tell if this is an advantage or disadvantage.

Somehow I found it liberating that in Angular not everything has to be a component when I started working with Angular after working 4 months with Polymer. Of course there are still directives but somehow this seems to restrict Angulars flexibiltiy.

Can you please explain the reasoning behind this decision a bit?

[mhevery]

ng-controller have some weird semantics, and always felt like the odd man out. ng-controller is only useful outside of component, and nesting them has issues, so you usually have only one.

Removing it simplifies the world. The issue is that it makes hello world kinds of apps more complicated, but that will be solved by allowing the root of the app to have its own type and one would get best of all worlds.

The issue that everything has to be a component only feels like an issue if the cost of creating them is high. If you have light weight components with decorator-directives then you have all the tools you should need for building your app.

[zoechi]

Thanks a lot for this feedback!

There were already several questions on SO and Google groups. I'll add a link to this thread.