Create `<bird:component_name>` custom HTML element

[joshuadavidthomas]

I really like the approach of django-cotton and dj-angles, where they take what looks like a custom HTML element and do some compilation in a template loader and swap the custom elements out for plain ole django templatetags.

I also prefer Flux's approach of namespacing the element with the library name and a colon, as opposed to the approach taken by the other two libraries where it looks like it could be a custom Web Component:

<!-- dj-angles -->
<dj-block 'content'>
</dj-block 'content'>

<!-- django-cotton -->
<c-button>
    Button
</c-product>

<!-- flux -->
<flux:button>
    Button
</flux:button>

This could just be a personal preference thing, but the first two throw me off and make me think they are custom Web Components, where the bottom I know can't be because of the colon.

In the end, it should be no harder to parse and compile with the colon vs with the dash.

[joshuadavidthomas]

So I complained about dj-angles and django-cotton and their custom components syntax looking like Web Components, and preferring flux's use of the : colon -- but after some digging and research, I think that's just how Laravel defines their version of templatetags.

So.. while I think I visually prefer the colon, not doing this would save the time and effort to creating a whole custom compiler just to achieve that same API. Whereas right now, we could recommend dj-angles to achieve similar results as django-cotton, while keeping everything in this library as vanilla Django templatetags as possible. Something to think about..

[joshuadavidthomas]

On the other hand, I've got a half working compiler over in https://github.com/joshuadavidthomas/django-template-ast -- maybe it's worth it to finish it up and pull it over here. Though I do worry about the long term maintenance of it all.

[carltongibson]

"Do less" a wise person once told me.