Re: templating engine options

LinuxManMikeC wrote:

On Sun, May 24, 2009 at 11:09 AM, tedd <tedd.sperling@gmail.com> wrote:

At 12:01 AM +0100 5/24/09, Nathan Rixham wrote:

LinuxManMikeC wrote:

I was recently researching template engines for a small in-house project, with a bias toward simple and lightweight. I found this interesting article in my search. I think its worth considering if you don't need all the bells and whistles of the big template engines. Simple and elegant. http://www.massassi.com/php/articles/template_engines/

cheers, it certainly is simple and elegant - however a bit too simple (specifically as it's in template php); gives me immediate visions of a wordpress template - and that's more than enough to scare me off! <lol> regards, nathan

All: Anytime I see embedded style elements within html, that's more than ample warning to make me look elsewhere for the solution -- because IMO that's not a solution. I find it interesting that the articles states "the separation of business logic from presentation" but then combines content with presentation. I don't see any real gain here. My efforts are always trying to separate content from function and presentation. Make everything as unobtrusive as you can. Place styling in remote css, client-side javascript enhancements unobtrusively, and use server-side php/mysql to create secure and accurate function to generate the proper html and deliver desired content. I can understand someone wanting to simplify their work, but exchanging one problem for another doesn't cut it for me. Cheers, tedd

You're missing the point just because he threw in some old HTML styling attributes. The main issue is the overhead of added parsing layers to find where content goes in the HTML. Aren't we already using a language (PHP) that parses for place holders for dynamic content within HTML tags? Write the template in XHTML, style it with CSS, and insert content place marks with PHP short tags. Do the programming work of calculations, validation, and DB access in another script which will include the template at the appropriate time. Even create classes to hold various data sets (think JavaBeans) if you want. Adding a layer of abstraction just so your designers don't have to write <?=$var?> is silly at best. At lest that's my opinion. Do whatever works for you. Mike

which is lovely, but then you realise you have business logic tied up in the presentation layer, and the client suddenly wants 3 different web based interfaces and a roaming flash version which calls the system via an api; and then you have the joy of telling the client its 6 months work and huge figure to rewrite the application layer to included an abstracted presentation layer, but it could have been avoided months ago with a days worth of work (or even an hours worth) and a different decision. all in though, hardly matters on a personal site, or a quick client job where, or a.. I guess there's a place for each technology and method; and we could throw scenarios around all night getting no where. :p