Ana's Amateur Renaming of Angular Crap 'Cause How the Heck are We Supposed to Know What "HostListener" Means?
Tags: angular, documentation, opensource, beginners
Published: 2023-02-20 21:21:00

## 😲 Whoa Ana! For Real?! 

Yes, I'll repeat it: _how in the heck are we supposed to know what "HostListener" means?_ I know I know. I'm being harsh 'cause coming up with names for all this technical whatnot and hoopla is indeed a complex task in and of itself. Yet, this complex task is one that is vitally important for an Angular amateur. A green one. A newbie. A confuse-ed human (yes, I added the extra, dramatic, yet entirely accurate, "ed"). 

## ✍️ Maybe My Background Will Explain My Harsh Judgment...
So, where is this wave of judgment coming through on my end? Why do I have such a yuck factor for the naming of Angular's HostListener? Well, for one, HostListener is NOT itself a clearly defined term that provides an exact definition of what this decorator does or that HostListener is a decorator at all, especially for beginners. Also, I used to be a writing teacher and have two degrees in writing. "Geez! Brag much, Ana!" So, that is to say, that developers are not inherently writers and a lot of times naming, deeming, the knighting of terms that will be used in the future does not get thought about from a writer-ly perspective wherein we try to garner the largest audience possible. Instead this sword-on-either-ear process is thought about from a developer-y perspective (even with a technical writer or writers on the team) and that means more abstraction, more technical on top of technical, more _I want to sound fancy for the sake of sounding fancy_, and, ultimately, less accessibility within a community with a wide range of knowledge and know-how.

## 👖 Well, Miss Fancy Pants. What Do You Suggest Instead?
This is a janky first draft of the suggestion, but something along the lines of “Document Object Model (DOM) Event Listener Decorator.” This is definitely not a final draft as the title is a bit long and clunky to say. But I prefer the clunkiness and length of "DOM Event Listener Decorator" that provides clarity over something like "HostListener." Perhaps something more accurate might be "Attached Component or Directive Event Listener Decorator." 

Also, see that I wrote out the acronym with the first use. I present now a whole other mini rant about the acronym madness in the technology industry. Here is a little nugget of first-year-composition-writing gold. Whenever using an acronym, make sure that it is fully spelled out on first mention in whatever medium being used: wikis, Teams' chat messages, Twitter posts, etc. 

"What???!!! Really, Ana? Even in Teams' chat messages and Twitter posts?" Yes, Really!!!!!! If, having read this post, the decision is made to still NOT 😥 write out the acronym on first mention that does indeed mean that there is an assumption that others "should" know the acronym or look it up if they don't. Here's the thing dudes and dudettes. I'm trying to help out. If the thought is that an individual should look up what the acronym stands for, then as clear writers we are actively directing a person away from our wiki, our message, our Twitter post, and so on. We are sending people away. Who knows how long before the intended audience (coworker, fellow dev.to reader, Twitter follower) will turn back toward the original piece of writing or if they will turn back at all? Let’s stop adding to the already inherent chaos of intentional distraction that is built into so many attention-sucking technologies and mediums. Let’s help each other out. Let’s get our focus back!

## ✨ It All Comes Down to Accessibility, So Stop Using the Phrase "A11Y" Gosh Dang It!
Here is an inaccessible shortening of words - “A11Y.” I had seen this weird excuse for a word used several times before I was inspired to look it up and realized that it is a shortening of the word "accessibility" itself. With the "11" in the middle standing for the 11 characters in between "A" and "Y." I get that there are some clever attempts in trying to promote being an "ally" of accessibility, but this whole shortening is wildly ironic and accomplishes a fundamental lack of accessibility while allegedly being "all for" accessibility. The same thing with the word internationalization, which is often shortened as "i18n." Just stop people! Stop! Stop! Stop! We are not being cool, clever, or quicker in our communication as Dwight Schrute from The Office might have us believe. Instead, in shortening words and making them sound just “so cool,” we are sending people down a rabbit hole of looking up the acronym and getting their eyes away from our valuable piece of writing or we are excluding beginners or we are excluding people whose first language is not English or or or.

### ❤️ Feedback
Feel free to like and/or dislike 😉 and comment. What suggestions do you have in place of “HostListener,” if any? Or do you think this name is just fine and dandy? What do you think about the naming of technical terms?