Re: Re: Question about template systems

Robert Cummings wrote:

On Wed, 2009-03-04 at 15:21 -0800, Michael A. Peters wrote:

Robert Cummings wrote:

To punt what is repeated over and over during runtime to a single compilation phase when building the template target. To simplify the use of parameters so that they can be used in arbitrary order with default values. To allow for the encapsulation of complex content in tag format that benefits from building at compile time and from being encapsulated in custom tags that integrate well with the rest of the HTML body.

I can't speak to those (and I have no opinion on template systems having never used any of them.

To remove the necessaity of constantly moving in and out of PHP tags.

php does not require that you constantly move in and out of PHP tags. There's at least one and possibly several pure php solutions that allow one to never write a line of html but get beautiful dynamic html output.

It doesn't require, but if you're not moving between them, then you're probably echoing your HTML, and that can be a maintenance nightmare.

echoing html involves mixing html and php. Using an XML class (like DOMDocument) to build the document does not.

To speed up a site.

I'm curious about that one, how so?

What need not be rendered at runtime because it was rendered at compile time saves that exact amount of time per page. When you include your header, include your footer, include your sidepanel, etc... these are all run-time hits. Primary navigation, secondary navigation, top bar navigation, etc etc. These can all be pre-rendered and pre-rendered contextually for each page to indicate which menu item corresponds to the current page. Here's what I do for a menu:

Thanks!