Apologies for butting in... I'm a bit late but I thought that things were
starting to get interesting! That's before everybody started agreeing ;-)
I have a few observations from a slightly different perspective. Can I make clear
that I am familiar with the reasons behind separation of content and presentation
- and I totally agree. (That's What They All Say!) I just think that maybe the
case has for 'no-html-for-engineers' has been overstated in this thread. There
are always exceptions - and there are some cases where an archetecture enforcing
strict separation is suboptimal. Using ECS in servlets isn't *wrong* it's just
that in many cases (and most internet web sites) it's simply not the best way to
produce a cool site.
I have an interest in web-applications using browsers as clients. In today's
modern hetrogenous networking environments, it makes a great deal of sense - and
hey, people might even be able to view information over the web :-)
There are several reasons why (or...when) separation at the HTML level makes less
sense for these types of site:
1. Content is much more important than presentation.
2. Information systems, or data access systems running against legacy databases
typically have very large numbers of tables. The project will get now where if
each input form and tabular results page is specially presentated. Typically,
specially significant or well-used pages will get the full treatment. The best
that the majority can hope for is to be 'styled' by a presentation artist.
I have had some good results from playing around with ECS and servlets in this
context. You see, the main alternative is not really stuff like turbine etc. but
scripting-hybrids (PHP or any of that microsoft rubbish). They fall down from the
fact that they cannot really take advantage of code-reuse and object-oriented
code (barring *crippling* installation problems in the case of microsoft IIS). It
would be quite easy to make a good 'data-bound' style library which would fetch
ECS objects from a database. For example, rather than using client-side
connectivity (ala microsoft) to connect to a server when you click an option
button on a form, it is very easy to come up with a library that returns an ECS
object from a fetch on the server-side this is then served up when the request is
reached at the server.
What I've always wondered about is actually the best way to integrate this into a
development framework...
Jon Stevens wrote:
> on 10/3/2000 7:46 AM, "Conneen, Mike" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > Great comment "I'm only trying to help you not make the same mistakes I did
> > by helping provide solutions that are based on learning from previous
> > mistakes.".. That is why the web is where it is today! However, sometimes
> > the knowledge is won not in knowing the end result, but stumbling along the
> > way. I think we'll catch up to where the Apache dudes are today.. but when
> > we do get there, you guys will be on to the next generation.. and thankfully
> > so!
>
> So, one lesson I learned is that stumbling along the way isn't necessarily
> the best way to go anymore. :-) I learned that lesson and decided to accept
> the advice of people who know more than I do (or whom have more experience
> than I do) right away instead of continuing to stumble along. It has saved
> me a lot of pain and suffering. :-)
>
> Like you said, "That is why the web is where it is today!". If you let it,
> it can be the largest resource of valuable information available to you
> ever! Take advantage of that FREE knowledge as even your parents certainly
> were not able to (it just didn't exist like it does today).
>
> :-)
>
> -jon
>
> --
> http://scarab.tigris.org/ | http://noodle.tigris.org/
> http://java.apache.org/ | http://java.apache.org/turbine/
> http://www.working-dogs.com/ | http://jakarta.apache.org/velocity/
> http://www.collab.net/ | http://www.sourcexchange.com/
>
> --
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