Apr 7 at 10:22pm, John W. Holmes wrote:
> > Uhhh, yeah--that's not templating, that's called spaghetti code :)
>
> +1 - Use of buzzword
Right about here I could sense where this was going.... I don't know, what
would you call it? Is there a non-buzzword term you'd be happier with?
That term predates PHP by a number of years, so I'm not sure about buzz...
> > For a designer or non-coder, Smarty will be easier to learn than PHP.
>
> You must work with some real idiots.
Sigh... you must work with some really lousy designers!
> You can teach them to write {$variable} but you can't teach them to
> write <?=$variable?> ?? Give your people some credit. If they can learn
> {section name="foo" loop=2 show=TRUE}{/section}, then they can learn
> for($x=0;$x<2;$x++){ }, can't they??
Sure, they could. However, take a look at all the newbie questions on this
list. Maybe you've got time for all that hand holding.. but Smarty is a
lot closer to HTML, which many of them already know.
> I'm sorry, but if Smarty takes your "template" and turns it into code
> like the example above, EXACTLY what "limitations" are you going to run
> into using the method above that Smarty solves?
How about the limitation of lack of infinite time? Seriously man, it's a
tool. If you think that I was claiming Smarty auto-magically did things
you couldn't do with PHP, you need to pay more attention...
> Fight it all you want, but PHP is a templating engine, too. That was
> it's original purpose. And again, what "power" of Smarty are we missing
> if Smarty just turns the template back into PHP code, anyhow?
Fight what? If you call inline code and variables a templating engine, I
can see why you don't get it. PHP can serve a templating purpose, but it
doesn't greatly facilitate that out of the box. It's not a strategy.
I don't want to get into a tit-for-tat, but there are a lot of things that
Smarty makes much easier and more flexible than coding straight PHP:
The ease of developing and applying different types of template plugins,
the ability to dynamically attach arbitrary functions as template plugins,
extending the Smarty class to encapsulate methods to control more complex
template functionalities.. the list goes on..
Please read the next sentence twice. You can do it all with plain PHP, but
I can do it much faster with Smarty, which is merely a TOOL.
> > In other words: are your template designers already good PHP programmers?
> > It's not just hype, it solves real problems, even if you don't have them.
>
> You can either teach your designers the Smarty language or you can teach
> them PHP. Which one will set them up for success?
Again, very much not the point.
> Now, all that being said, I am a fan of Smarty and use it in some
> applications. But, there's no reason you can't use straight PHP and
> achieve the same results by simply separating presentation logic from
> your code.
It's clear you're just trying to be antagonistic, so I won't beleaguer the
point. I have a strong understanding of PHP, and I myself find Smarty
easier to work with from a template design standpoint.
Please feel free to call me a total idiot, question my intelligence,
belittle me or the people I work with, and other side topics relating to
the technical merits of Smarty or the use of templating systems.
I found it really educational and enriching.
Thanks for your contribution.
PS: I think this is tired at this point; thank you to Justin for a
thoughtful response that reassured me it was still a discussion. I realize
that many PHP 'experts' (let's call them) may find different solutions
that suit them differently. People have different levels and different
needs. I personally like Smarty, and Smarty was the original topic of the
thread. I'm open to ideas, but going back to mixing PHP and HTML is not a
new idea nor a true templating system, and there are valid reasons I
sought out a more comprehensive approaches after doing it that way for
many years. I found much benefit in Smarty, and hope others will too.
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