Re: [PHP Template] Re: [PHP3] Re: [PHP Template] Re: [PHP3] PHP Template Engine specrevision 0.52

Hi Zeev,

I think we're all going a bit overboard on the whole "two separate
languages" argument. Templates allow form to be separated from content.
The PHP scripts and the templates are really two separate beasts, you're
comparing apples to oranges. Look at FastTemplate for example, the
syntax does not resemble PHP code whatsoever. That is because it is a
template, not a PHP script. Whoever said that designers don't want
anything more complicated than Dreamweaver... right on. The templates
engine, at its most rudimentary form, closely resembles the resulting
html pages. If the designer needs a bit more control over the template,
that is what the logic controls are there for. Calling this a "second
language" makes it sound like template logic is a vast complexity like
PHP itself, when in fact it is nowhere near that. It is merely a small
subset of logic to give designers the flexibility they need, with a
syntax that is easy to comprehend (in comparison to PHP) by the non
programmer.

I think we need to provide template examples. Just looking at the spec
makes it seem much more complicated than it really is.

Monte

Zeev Suraski wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 21 Mar 2000, Cliff Rowley wrote:
> 
> > As far as saying "PHP already does what we need..." is not an
> > argument.  Adding a template engine bears no effect on those who choose
> > not to use it.
> 
> But it does!  Imagine that the template engine goes live, in say, two
> months.  After a month, or two months, or half a year - sooner or later -
> people will start using it.  They may be 0.1% of the PHP users, they may
> be 20% of the PHP users.  They will write code based on this whole new
> language.  Some of them will release some of that code in the various code
> exchanges.  And wham - someone that until now was quite capable of
> understanding PHP scripts that he downloaded, will now bump into something
> that doesn't even reminds him of PHP, but for some odd reason, is also
> considered PHP code.  Time to look for the spec to figure out what it's
> all about.
> 
> In my opinion, that's bad.  It has nothing to do with the language Andrei
> suggested.  He may argue that it's better, I may argue that it's not.  It
> doesn't matter.  The point is that PHP should not feature two
> completely different syntaxes to do the same thing.  It's bad for the
> users.
> 
> Zeev
>