RE: Intelligent JavaScript handling

Excellent point, Scott. It also helps lead to abstraction and
refactoring. Another point is that your editor/IDE will be able to
recognize your javascript code properly--always.

Still, just as parameterization has uses, so does meta-programming.
Indeed, there are situations where a meta-replacement is simpler than
parameter passing. This is especially true during the prototyping
phase. Further, if you blindly paramaterized all replacements, you are
likely to end-up sending MORE code (as you will have functions for each
replacement) meaning a larger runtime for the client and more
functional points that will require maintenance.

I think both techniques are very useful and I tend to agree that having
a mechanism that can support those context switches from within Smarty
would be valuable. It doesn't have to be overloaded in the {literal}
tag, though I'm not against that. I think messju and others are being
TOO literal with that tag :) (compare PHP strings allowing embedded
vars and also the prevelance of the backslash escape char) I think a
{script} tag or what-have-you is less appropriate because the issue
isn't related strictly to JS scripting but also appears in other
situations.

xo boots

--- Scott Matthewman <[email protected]> wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Monte Ohrt [mailto:[email protected]] 
> > Sent: 17 March 2004 16:33
> > 
> > Another option is replacing "{" with "{ldelim}" and "}" with 
> > "{rdelim}",
> > since that wasn't mentioned. There usually aren't too many of 
> > them, one
> > pair per javascript function or css definition.
> 
> At the risk of veering off-topic, this particular thread is poitning
> out to
> me (as a developer who uses Smarty)) that people are programming
> JavaScript
> inefficiently.
> 
> If you're using Smarty to write out fresh JavaScript all the time,
> with
> variable values droppen in where necessary, you would be better off
> using
> functions in your JavaScript function definitions, so that the only
> lines
> that need to have Smarty insert variables are the function *calls*.
> 
> If you can get into this habit, then your resultant HTML+Javascript
> will (a)
> generally end up being smaller in size, if two of more blocks of JS
> code can
> be replaced with two calls to one parameterised function; and (b)
> load
> quicker, if you are then able to store your Javascript functions in a
> separate file (i.e., with <script src="..."></script>) which browsers
> can
> then cache independently of however many HTML pages need to use the
> same
> function.
> 
> It'll also make debugging code easier, as you know that the JS code
> won't be
> changing every time you generate a new page from your templates... ;)
> 
> Just my twopenn'orth, as my grandmother used to say,
> 
> Scott


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