writeonce/docs/stories/language-runtime-database/37-wo-html-components.md

iteration	status
37	done

Iteration 37 — wo-html components: an MVC-shaped view layer (Angular's format, studied)

Format: product/story-iteration-template. Part of Story — one language, one runtime, one database, one binary.

Inserted 2026-08-23 (developer ask: "enhance wo-html like MVC; understand Angular format"). Grows the wo-html LIBRARY, never the framework — the 2026-08-20 micro-framework directive stands: routing/ middleware/Req/Resp stay MVC-free, and the view layer lives in its own dependency (the site sample's two-dep lesson). Unscheduled — independent of the concurrency chain; needs its spec brainstormed first.

REDIRECTED 2026-08-23 (developer review of the shop template against a Vue SFC): render()-as-string-concatenation failed the DX referendum — markup must be markup-FIRST. RE-POINTED 2026-08-24 (developer counter-proposal): the leaning is now in-class raw template literals, not separate .html files — render() RETURNS a raw multi-line string literal whose {{ expr }} holes are auto-escaped, compile-time-checked interpolations in class scope (a typo'd field is a compile error). Compiler surface shrinks to one lexer addition (the raw literal — a general language win: multi-line text without \" noise) plus one desugar; no file pairing, no w:component sections. Structural control stays the language's own if/for composing literals; w:if/w:for attributes and separate .html files are DEMOTED to a later option that can layer on without breaking this form. Escaping: {{ }} always escapes; the raw/slot spelling is the one greppable door. A runtime mustache-lite stays REJECTED (reflection-free means untyped map<Text, Text>); client- side reactivity (ref, @click, v-model) stays out under the no-JS posture — forms and POSTs instead. Still a COMPILER iteration, parked behind the standing "no compiler/VM/database changes yet" directive. The shop template (docs/examples/shop) is the consumer: each render() body becomes one raw template literal, and its README's recorded gaps ride along (gap #1: pub + @table cannot combine — blocks a shared model module; gap #2: @view projection classes).

CODE LANDED 2026-08-24 — the compiler slice only. Forks #1 and #3 are settled and shipped: the raw literal is BACKTICK-delimited with verbatim content, {{ }} always HTML-escapes and ${ } stays raw, and the common source margin is removed at lex time. {!! !!} as the raw slot is DISCARDED — ${ } already was the raw spelling and a second one would have been a synonym. The escaping desugar turned out to need no compiler knowledge of HTML at all: {{ e }} becomes a Call on whatever esc is in scope, so typecheck, ownership, codegen, the .wob format and the VM are all untouched, and the standing "no VM/database changes" directive was never in play. Two new lexing diagnostics ride along (WO-E004 unterminated raw literal, WO-E005 newline inside a quoted string — the latter closing a silent file-swallowing hole that existed since Task 3). The COMPONENT half of this story — the Component interface, Layout with slots, the site migrating onto them — is untouched and still pending.

LANDED 2026-08-25 — the component half, and with it the iteration. wo-html gained Component (structural, the view twin of the framework's Handler), render_all and Layout; fork #4 is settled by MOVING ok_html into the framework beside ok_text/ok_json (transport, not rendering — both HTML samples had hand-rolled the same four lines), and fork #5 by migrating BOTH samples. Fork #2 stands as written: no directive surface ships. Layout slots are pre-rendered Text, not multi Component — the compositional variant was proven possible and deliberately not taken for the layout, though the PAGE components do use it.

Why this iteration exists

wo-html today is element builders + one utility sheet: pages are functions concatenating Text. That works (the site proves it) but has no unit of reuse bigger than a function — no way to say "this fragment owns its data, its markup, and its place in a layout" and hand it around. Angular's component FORMAT — a class declaring its inputs, a template rendering them, composition by nesting, structural directives for repetition and choice — is the studied precedent: the FORMAT translates to server-rendered .wo; the client-side half (change detection, event bindings, SPA router) deliberately does not.

What Angular's format maps to (the study, summarized)

Angular	wo-html translation	doctrine fit
@Component class with @Input()s	a class whose FIELDS are the inputs, satisfying a structural Component interface (fn render() -> Text)	behavior-as-class; no closures needed
template ({{ expr }})	the render method's interpolation — .wo already has ${...} in Text	no template dialect: templates ARE code
*ngFor / *ngIf	explicit for/if in render() building Text — the language's own control flow	no structural-directive mini-language
content projection (<ng-content>)	a layout component taking pre-rendered Text slots as fields	slots are ordinary values
services/DI	no translation — a component reads its fields; queries stay in handlers (M and V stay separate)	rejected: DI needs function values
event bindings (click) / two-way [(ngModel)]	no translation — server-rendered, no JS doctrine; forms stay form_post round trips	rejected surface

Goals

• A Component interface in wo-html: structural (fn render() -> Text), so any class with fields + render satisfies it — the view twin of the framework's Handler. Composition is nesting: a parent's render calls children's render.
• The MVC seam stated: Model = @table rows queried in the HANDLER, moved into component fields; View = components rendering Text; Controller = the framework handler wiring them. The library documents the seam; it never queries.
• Layout components with slots: the site's nav/shell/footer become the proof — a Layout { title, nav, content, footer } component replacing today's shell() functions, chapter pages and homepage composing it.
• The site sample migrates as acceptance: same rendered bytes (or deliberately better), gate stays green — the library grew a floor, not a rewrite.

Acceptance Criteria (draft — the spec refines)

• Given a class with fields and fn render() -> Text, when a handler moves data in and calls render, then the page it serves is byte-deterministic from the fields — no hidden state, no globals.
• Given nested components (layout → section → card), when the outer render runs, then children render through the same structural interface, and escaping stays the caller-explicit esc() rule at every level.
• Given the migrated site sample, when just site runs, then 11/0 — the gate is the proof the component layer reproduces the existing pages.
• Given a component reused across two pages (the chapters card on home and chapter pages), when either page changes its data, then the other's markup is untouched — reuse is real, not copied.

Out Of Scope

• Client-side anything: change detection, event/two-way bindings, SPA routing, hydration — the no-JS posture stands; interactivity is form round trips until a directive says otherwise.
• A RUNTIME template engine (files parsed per request, mustache-style) — rejected 2026-08-23: reflection-free means untyped map<Text, Text> values. Templates compile to code at build time or they don't exist.
• Dependency injection / services — components are data-in, Text-out.
• Moving wo-html into the framework — settled 2026-08-23: separate libraries, composed via [deps].
• CSS componentization (scoped styles) — the utility sheet stays one static string; measure pain first.

Info

Forks the spec must settle (REVISED 2026-08-23 for the compiled-template direction):

1. The raw-literal spelling — SETTLED 2026-08-24 and landed: backticks, content verbatim (no escape processing), common margin removed at lex time, ${ } raw and {{ }} escaping. A literal backtick, ${ or {{ is written by concatenating a "..." string with .. — one greppable door instead of an escape character in the one form whose point is not having any.
2. Directive surface — SETTLED 2026-08-25 as written: v1 ships NONE. Structural control is if/for composing literals, and two migrated samples produced no case that wanted more. w:if/w:for and separate .html files remain the later option — and a COMPILE-TIME include is the only shape either could honestly take, since a file read per request is the rejected engine.
3. Escaping default — SETTLED 2026-08-24 and landed: {{ }} escapes ALWAYS, through whatever esc is in scope (wo-html's, or a local one that shadows it deliberately). ${ } is the raw door. Proven byte-identical against the hand-written esc() calls it replaces, hostile input included.
4. The framework seam — SETTLED 2026-08-25: ok_html MOVED into framework/http/types.wo; no respond(c) sugar, because ok_html(c.render()) already is it.
5. Migration depth — SETTLED 2026-08-25: BOTH, site gated and shop hand-driven; web-app stays HTML-less as the counter-example.

Study sources: Angular's component/@Input/ng-content docs (format only; no Angular code enters the repo — candidate .dev/reference addition if deeper study is wanted), Go's html/template as the server-side contrast, and the site sample as the living consumer.

Landed 2026-08-24 — the raw text literal

The compiler slice, and nothing else. compiler/src/lexer.ml gained one branch: a backtick opens a literal whose content is verbatim to the closing backtick, newlines included, with two hole forms — ${ } raw and {{ }} escaped — and the common source margin removed before the token is emitted (Java's text-block rule). token.ml gained one str_part variant to carry the escaped hole; parser.ml's desugar_interp wraps it in a call to esc; dump.ml labels it. That is the entire compiler surface. Nothing in typecheck, ownership, codegen, the .wob format or the VM changed, because the literal emits the same Str/InterpStr token a "..." string always did.

Proven: woc-test 554/0 with new token and AST goldens; oop-e2e 115/0 with a run fixture for the literal and a compile-fail fixture for WO-E004; just site 11/0 and just web-app 46/0 after wo-html's builders and the site's two chapter snippets migrated onto the form; a parity program comparing every migrated wo-html builder's old and new output on hostile input (<, >, &, ") — byte-identical in all eight. page() is the one deliberate byte change: four newlines now sit inside <head>, where whitespace is insignificant, and none inside <body>. Every .wo in the repo was re-lexed: no file gained a diagnostic.

The shop template migrated too — five view files, every render() body now one literal with real double-quoted attributes and no esc() calls — verified by building it against local file:// dep remotes and driving every route, since no just recipe gates it.

Landed 2026-08-25 — the component half

wo-html grew three things and no more: pub interface Component { fn render() -> Text }, pub fn render_all(cs: multi Component) -> Text, and pub class Layout { title, nav, content, footer } whose slots are pre-rendered Text. The MVC seam is stated in the library's own header and README, and the library still contains no query.

A finding that shaped the design: multi Component holds a heterogeneous list directly — no wrapper record. The framework's Mw/Aw wrappers had suggested otherwise; they are not a language requirement. That is what let a page component hold its children as multi Component and call render_all on them, which is where the interface actually earns its place — an interface nothing consumes as a TYPE would have been decoration.

Fork #4 settled by moving: ok_html now lives in framework/http/types.wo beside ok_text/ok_json, and both duplicate copies are deleted. No respond(c: Component) sugar — ok_html(c.render()) is already the whole thing, and a second spelling would earn nothing.

The site migrated: shell/shell_wide fill Layout (byte-identical — Layout.render() is page(title, nav .. content .. footer), exactly what the old functions built), and chapter_nav became a ChapterNav component whose query moved out into chapter_links(), called by the handlers. The homepage and every chapter page now render the SAME component with a different current — acceptance criterion 4, met by construction rather than by inspection.

The shop migrated further than planned, because its views already had render(): app_shell() became an AppShell component, and ProductListPage/OrdersPage now hold multi Component children instead of a concatenated Text blob, with the queries in the controllers. AppShell is deliberately NOT Layout — the template links a real stylesheet where Layout inlines tw_css(), and that difference is the point of it having its own shell.

Restructured 2026-08-25 (follow-on): the site sample was then laid out like the program template — types.wo for the model, a layout/ module for the chrome, home/ and chapter/ view modules, one *.controller.wo per feature in the root module, and a main.wo that is bootstrap and nothing else. main.wo went from 231 lines holding everything to 44 lines holding routes. Both samples now read the same way, which was the point: the template teaches a shape, and the site should not contradict it.

Proven: just site 11/0 (the gate, and the escape check still passes), just web-app 46/0 (the framework gained a function), woc-test and oop-e2e untouched and green. The shop was built against local file:// dep remotes and driven through every route — product grid (4 cards rendered as child components), product page with its form, buy, /orders (rows as child components), the empty-orders branch, 404, 409, and /assets/*.

Proposed Solution

Brainstorm → spec → plan (the superpowers path): settle the four forks, grow wo-html by the Component interface + a Layout proof, migrate the site sample as acceptance, keep the framework untouched. Ships independently of the concurrency chain; slots wherever the developer schedules it.