Re: [PHP Template] Re: [PHP3] PHP Template Engine spec revision 0.52

At 12:21 AM 3/21/00 +0200, Zeev Suraski wrote:
>In my opinion, your implementation of templates is far too complex.
>You're implementing an almost CF-level template system, with controls and
>whatnot, which makes no sense to me, having PHP as the backend.  Why would
>the template syntax make more sense than the PHP syntax?

Because PHP is an amalgamation of C, Perl, and Java. Because PHP's
'include' is unsuitable for these purposes. Because we don't want to touch
PHP's scripting engine (right?). And a multitude of other reasons.

>I can understand the use of templates for very straightforward stuff, if
>you want someone that doesn't understand programming to handle your pages
>(which I personally consider questionable as well, but I guess many others
>don't).  However, if that someone is bright enough to use the template
>system you're building, he doesn't need to be any smarter or more skilled
>to use PHP itself, which is why I think it's wrong to implement two
>scripting languages on top of one another.

Zeev, I wish there was a web interface to this list's archives. You should
go back and read through the messages from the very beginning.

>IMO, the spec should be scaled-down considerably, and be made much more
>similar to the template systems that are already built for PHP (only this
>one would be in C, instead of PHP scripts).

Well, then I wouldn't be able to call it SmartTemplate. :)

-Andrei