Feature: Shorthand syntax for children()

[webJose]

Describe the problem

As I generate components that pass helpful data in the form of snippet parameters, I cannot help but wonder how passing from nothing to {#snippet children(a, b, c)} ... {/snippet} just to be able to access a, b and c is annoying.

Describe the proposed solution

How about a shorthand syntax for the special and predefined case of children?

<Component>
    {# (a, b, c)}
    {/}
</Component>

UPDATE

Inspired by the attachments syntax:

<Component params(a, b, c)>
    <!-- We can use variables a, b and c here -->
</Component>

---

Importance

nice to have

[dominikg]

This request is lacking detail. Please describe the problem you are trying to solve using snippet arguments in more detail, providing complete examples of the component code and required syntax to pass in the snippet with the current syntax.

removing both snippet and children from the syntax is not going to work, both are required for the compiler to know what to do and humans to understand what is being declared.
Keeping the syntax short and concise is a great goal, but not at the cost of valuable information. Especially if you generate the code as code generators tend to have a very high tolerance for annoying extra characters.

[webJose]

Hello. Don't know what else to tell you. I surely can give you the specific example that I most recently produced: A Route component for a client-side router library. The route parameters are passed as argument to the children snippet.

If route parameters are not needed:

<Route path="/admin">
    ...
</Route>

If route parameters are needed:

<Route path="/admin/:dashboardId">
    {#snippet children(params)}
        ...
    {/snippet}
</Route>

I think we can say that it is considerable overhead, when all that the developer cared about was to gain access to params.

Since children already has the privilege of being the default snippet when no snippet is specified, I'm simply trying to compliment this with a syntax that obtains the parameters without having to specify it is the children snippet.

In all honesty, the shortest shorthand is probably something like Svelte v4 let:, but I suppose that would be borderline offensive at this point. 😄

[webJose]

Perhaps <Route path="/admin/:dashboardId" params(<variable or destructure here>)>? This comes as inspiration from the new-to-become attachments syntax, where we will have <Component attach(...)>.

[dummdidumm]

Thanks, but we're not going to do this. Any of these shorthands will only add confusion:

• {# (a,b)}..{/} is just bracket soup and two ways to do the same
• <Route params(x, y)> will bring back all the nightmares that let:x had: it's not clear what the scope is, where it can be used, and it looks backwards (all other things are passed values, this declares one)

You IDE should help you autocomplete these things, and you can create shortcuts yourself (VS Code also calls this snippet, I believe) to write out boilerplate.