What happens when you want to add a second, unrelated, thing? Just stick it on the end in the onclick? Create a new function called doTwoThings()? This is one of the reasons I prefer using an observer pattern over MVC.

That doesn't really happen though - also, Ng-click is a specific directive you can choose not to use.

A more general argument is that any behaviour specified in markup is bad. I'd counter that by saying that it's already there in HTML. Input boxes for example have behaviour intrinsic to their being. So angular let's you create a (for example) richtext tag. You attach behaviour to that tag, say on click. In the HTML it's as clean as <richtext>. Within the directive you can make it behave as you please.

I think that people see the shortcut directives used in angular (eg Ng-click) and the purists shout "unclean"! The reality is that You can do things a slightly longer way and end up with something thy looks a lot like the observer pattern.

Nothing, but some feel rather strongly averse to it, and plainly view this as Angular's self-evident fatal flaw. As I said I do not subscribe to this line of thinking. My allusion to the horror and barbarism of the pre-JS MVC was merely a jape.

If I recall, its more efficient to attach the handler in JS than in an onclick attribute.

source for this please?