Rename template → view_template

[joeldrapper]

This is a non-breaking rename that issues a warning whenever you define template.

[davidalejandroaguilar]

Why was this needed?

[joeldrapper]

Because there’s an HTML tag <template>. In 2.0, the template method will render a <template> tag. In 1.10, you’ll be able to define a component template with either template or view_template, but using template is deprecated.

I spent a lot of time trying to avoid this change, but couldn’t find a way through. https://www.namingthings.org/p/magic-template-methods

[davidalejandroaguilar]

@joeldrapper Thanks for your response! Funny enough, I had just found that article myself right before you got back to me.

So, choosing to rename it to view_template turned out to be a better call than simply sticking with template and having that HTML tag be the only one called via template_tag, huh?

I get the urge to make that tweak as well – my "OCD" would have nudged me in the same direction. But I can't help thinking that using the shorter template instead of view_template would have been more up my alley.

[joeldrapper]

This decision wasn’t taken lightly. We spent hours discussing various options. We want it to be really easy for anyone who knows HTML to learn Phlex, and having to remember this one exception to the one-to-one mapping of methods to elements really harms that.

[davidalejandroaguilar]

Absolutely, that makes sense. I'm curious, do you see this change as a lasting one? Or do you think the compiler improvement you talked about in the article might allow us to revert back to using template in the future?

Also, I really appreciate you taking the time to break this down for me. I hope it didn't pull you away from your work for too long. It would be great if the reasoning behind changes like these could be included in the PR descriptions for those of us keeping an eye on the project.

[joeldrapper]

For now, the compiler is a really low priority because Phlex is so fast already. I expect view_template is here to stay now.

[simi]

💡 Seems I'm late to party with my story, since this check was already removed. I had to spent some time to find out which component emits this warning. If possible, add also some pointer like self.class to the output for future warning. 🙏 I was able to find out just by opening gem with bundle open and adding debug print in this method temporarily in the end.

[joeldrapper]

Hey @simi, thanks for the feedback. Yes, we removed it from main, but it’s still in the latest version. I’ll try to remember to add more context to deprecation warnings in the future.

I hope we won’t need to do anymore of these going forward.