RE: [PHP-DEV] PHP as a template language

> -----Original Message----- > From: Sébatien Durand [mailto:sunseb@live.com] > Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2012 10:55 PM > To: internals@lists.php.net > Subject: [PHP-DEV] PHP as a template language > > IMHO, PHP is a great template language. This is what makes it so simple and powerful, compared > to other web languages. > > So far, we have "<?php", "<?=" and various legacy syntaxes like > "<?". > > A suggestion : deprecate these old tags and replace them with a more elegant and a shorter > implementation. > > For example : "<%" and "<%=" or "{%" and "{{" ? > > What do you think, guys ? Honestly this is the wrong question. PHP as a template language has much larger problems than this. The difference between <?php echo and <?= is 7 characters and entirely cosmetic. The difference relative to <?php echo htmlentities(..., ENT_QUOTES | ENT_HTML5, 'UTF-8'); ?> however is 56 characters, security, and encoding bugs. Proper handling of output escaping is standard in modern template languages.. The question shouldn't be "should we add a cooler short tag?". The question should be "What needs to be done to make PHP an industry leader in template languages again?". My two cents, John Crenshaw Priacta, Inc.