Re: Package Proposal: HTML_Template_Dummy

On Friday, Jul 18, 2003, at 15:44 US/Central, Joshua Eichorn wrote:

Wouldn't the solution be to only have template engines that are truly different like this one instead of a bunch of identical ones

That's my opinion too; basically, all the template engines in PEAR are variations on two themes.

    Theme 1: Load a template with its own specific markup,
    parse the markup into values/loops/structures, (maybe
    cache the html) and output the parsed template.

    Theme 2: Load a template with its own specific markup,
    compile the template markup into a PHP script, (maybe
    cache the compiled script) and execute the compiled
    script (and maybe cache the resulting html).

Dummy is neither of those. It only acts as an encapsulator for display logic (so as to separate it from business logic) where the logic is itself already in PHP. Not to shoot down my own package, but I really do understand the objections of Martin and Lukas. We have...

    HTML_Template_[ Flexy | IT | PHPLib | Sigma | Xipe ]

...already in PEAR, and they all do pretty much the same thing. What use, then, to add Dummy to the archive? As you note, Joshua, the only reason would be that Dummy is, in at least one way, fundamentally different in operation from these others. That really is the only thing in its favor (well, the way it goes about operating is in its favor, I would think, but that might be just me ;-). Guys, if you could, please take a good look at HTML_Template_Dummy and see if it wouldn't be a useful addition to PEAR, not for its "purpose" per-se (templates) but for its operation in achieving that purpose. You might decide it's a worthy addition after all. -- pmj