Directives are Angular's most powerful feature. They are what makes Angular Angular. However, directives can also be frustratingly difficult to grasp: The API for making directives is large and convoluted - as Miško Hevery has attested. With all the configuration options, terminology, and functions-returning-functions, it buries the simple core ideas under heaps of complexity. The thing is, at the core of the directive system there is a simple process of compiling DOM nodes and linking them with Scope objects. When you understand how this process works, everything about directives becomes easier to think about. In this talk I'll build up a version of the Angular directive system that illustrates the core concepts. This will illuminate some of the dark corners of the Angular directive implementation, and give you a solid mental model of what Angular actually does with directives. This will make directives a lot less daunting as you use them in day-to-day work.