Re: template engine...why???

Don't discount the fact that PHP was originally a templating system, and it still is! My contention is that any general-purpose templating system will eventually evolve to become PHP because you simply cannot solve all templating problems without some presentation-level logic and once you add the first signs of template-level logic, you will eventually turn into PHP. You can of course simplify the problem and limit the scope so that you only address a thin slice of the problem. But you don't really need to layer a templating system on top of PHP for that. You just need to apply a little bit of discipline and come up with a sane architecture. Take this, for example: http://talks.php.net/presentations/slides/intro/php_app_arch.png An illustration of using this 4-layer architecture is here: http://talks.php.net/show/nytips/2 (Yes, I know it looks like crap in IE. View it using Mozilla) If you can't run Mozilla, you can view the plain PDF version here: http://lerdorf.com/nytips.pdf So, please, before you start layering slow templating systems on top of PHP, have a look at using PHP itself as your templating system. If you are at all concerned about performance you need to seriously consider an approach like this. -Rasmus On Wed, 30 Apr 2003, Brent Baisley wrote: > To separate logic & content from design. > > Depending on the template system you use, you can separate your PHP > code from your HTML/CSS/etc. Then you can have a web design expert > design your pages and you just "plug-in" the content. Or, you could > allow your client to customize the view if they know HTML. For > instance, changing the order of columns in a list view, or even which > columns are displayed. > By separating you content from the design, you can also easily switch > display platforms. What if you client wants to access the system from > their cell phone? With the right template system, you don't have to > change any of the PHP code you've already done, just the template file > used to display the data. > > I don't use any of the template systems out there since they were much > more than I needed. I use output buffering (ob_start) to load template > files into variables and replace (str_replace) custom data tags with > real data. It's very simple to implement and I can alter a design > knowing that I won't break my code. > > On Tuesday, April 29, 2003, at 09:18 PM, Ryan A wrote: > > > Why use a template engine? > > > -- > Brent Baisley > Systems Architect > Landover Associates, Inc. > Search & Advisory Services for Advanced Technology Environments > p: 212.759.6400/800.759.0577 > > > -- > PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) > To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php >