Re: [Freemarker-devel] Ideal tag syntax; what's your take on it?

Friday, June 10, 2011, 6:16:32 AM, Brian Pontarelli wrote:

> Just require parens for method calls. That simplifies it and keeps
> in java-ish. Everything else is an operator. 

Yeah. So as I said, I think that's how it should be (require
parentheses), except on the same time, functions and directives (and
methods!) should be unified, i.e., there should be only functions.
Then, if you have a tag-ish syntax and an interpolation syntax anyway,
if you just want to call a function or method you can use the tag
syntax, otherwise the Java-ish syntax. That's I believe is the right
track (and it calls for serious changes compared to FreeMarker).

BTW, I also tried using exactly the same syntax for tags and
expressions inside them... Easy, ignoring some details it's like
WebMacro. But too often it didn't looked well mixed with static text.
Although for some tasks it was very handy. That's another dilemma...
no syntax is ideal for all templating tasks. Supporting multiple
syntaxes which are "compiled" to the same AST is possible, but causes
segmentation among users (and even developer tools), so maybe it's
better to "force" a middle-road syntax on everyone.

-- 
Best regards,
 Daniel Dekany


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