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

((since Zeev has asked for feedback on his "paranoia"))

I too had been following the growth of the Template Engine specification 
but   it seemed to be adding layer upon layer of complexity which IMO is 
way beyond what any designer I've worked with could ever manage.

My _recent_ experiences with "Design Firms" is that, with the advent of the 
sophisticated WYSIWYG platforms, they literally are not even aware that 
they are creating Javascript laden pages that break on some browser versions.

IMO the various attempts at developing _templates_ to separate content 
management from processing logic have only gotten more complex (for 
designers) and my hope was for the opposite.

But more important to me now is Zeev's argument that "layering" of 
another  language/syntax to perform the same functions as the base language 
is not a good thing.  Reflecting on the recent debate from that perspective 
sheds new light on some of my queasy feelings about it.

When I read "This revision addresses quite a few issues related to sections 
and multi-valued variables." it now has a whole new meaning ;-)

Thanks Zeev.

Sincerely,
Tom Henry


At 07:30 AM 3/21/00 +0200, Zeev Suraski wrote:
>On Mon, 20 Mar 2000, Andrei Zmievski wrote:
[snip]
I think that in the way the spec is laid out right now, templates are
>truly a language inside a language, and regardless of their specific
>syntax, it's always bad to have two completely different syntaxes to do
>the same thing, *especially* if you're staying in the scope of the same
>language (I think we would be one of the first examples for this, and it's
>not a very good thing!).
>
>As opposed to this, a trivial (in the literal sense) template
>implementation, which would literally have no learning curve, much like
>the template engine of phplib or the other ones available, does not impose
>that danger.  It's really just a different way to lay out presentation,
>and it requires no learning of a new syntax, plus it doesn't give you the
>ability to write your logic using a completely different syntax.

>If your designers love the ability to write conditionals in their
>templates, which essentially means they're coding, they should truly learn
>the PHP syntax.  Introducing a whole new syntax inside PHP just because
>your designers don't like PHP's syntax is a bad thing, regardless of
>whether that syntax goes directly to the scripting engine (which as you
>said, we don't want to change) or to a slightly higher level position.
>
>I would really like to hear from people whether they think I'm just being
>'paranoid' about introducing a complete new syntax set for PHP being a bad
>thing.  If my thoughts are correct, then this discussion does belong here,
>because as I said, in a year's time or so, it'll affect every single PHP
>developer out there.
>
>Zeev

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