From: zope-admin@zope.org [mailto:zope-admin@zope.org]On Behalf Of Terry Hancock Sent: Tuesday, March 12, 2002 3:15 AM To: danny@adair.net; Zope@zope.org Subject: Re: [Zope] Re: What causes the community to stall so often?
It's probably mostly a visual thing, but to me the ZPT code looks really crudded up and hard to read, whereas DTML seems pretty straightforward. (This is not just a question of familiarity -- both are pretty new to me). And besides, it's obvious that it will only work with HTML (maybe general XML formats?).
Yep. Works with any well-formed XML.
My impression is that ZPT is being pushed pretty hard though, despite the fact that it's main claim to fame seems to be that it "looks good in Dreamweaver" (or other HTML GUI editor), which is fairly irrelevant to me.
Might want to look deeper into ZPT, at least until you understand it's value. Yes, it does work well with GUI editors, but it also provides a clean and predictable interface, whereas there are exceptions to exceptions about how DTML works and DTML, in general, has a screwier syntax once you get into it.
Maybe the real point is that in our organization (which is just a couple of people strong :)), the "designers" and "programmers" are the same people -- we don't have the kind of divisions that the posts on the this list seem to imply are common to most users.
I'm a shop on one: sales, designer, programmer, client therapist, etc. I love ZPT (but also use DTML for non-HTML output, like for ZSQL methods, etc.)
The fear then, is that DTML will no longer be maintained and will wind up being obsoleted by future changes to Zope. Since there's no real alternative to using Zope for my project (which is projected to last longer than Zope has yet existed), I fear the possibility of getting (1) locked into an out of date system, (2) having to translate everything into ZPT despite my misgivings (and/or whatever new language is invented a year from now because ZPT is then given up on too, and "everyone really ought to use YAPTL"), or else (3) having to fork the code and maintain our own "Rationalized Object Publishing Environment" (as in just enough to hang ourselves), which would be, to put it simply, VERY EXPENSIVE. :D
I really wouldn't worry about this. ZC has said many times that DTML is _not_ disappearing; it's a stable part of the Zope system and they have every reason to keep it there.