[ZDP] dtml sucks ?

[Ulf Byskov]

Zope is nice but dtml sucks ?

I am a newbie trying to learn to use Zope however I am an experienced
programmer
who knows several different languages (like many other programmers).
when someone
wants to learn a new language it is important that there is some decent
documentation.

At first sight dtml doesn't look like a language, but just a bunch of
strange tags embedded in html.
But it is a language after all since it features stuff like:

<dtml-if .........>
    <dtml-call "REQUEST.set('my_var', 'my_value')">
<dtml-elsif>
    I got the value: <dtml-var my_var>
</dtml-if>

What the Zope documentation is seriously lacking (in my opinion) is an
entry point to dtml
having c, c++, basic etc. programmers in mind.

What a programmer usually wants to know when learning a new language is
:
1. What variable types are available
2. How do I create variables and how do I access them (keywords:
passing, global, hieracy, namespace, scope)
3. How do I create functions and other structures and how do I access
them
4. Other syntax related stuff

I can see that some docs on this are available but they are so badly
structured that it is too hard to find what you need.
As it is right now you have to read quite a lot (docs and mailing-lists)
to do things.

I am writing all this because I had some simple problems.

For example:
    How do I create a variable in one method and how do I access it in
another ?

This should be rather simple, but I still don't know how to do it !
 It should be one of the first things to explaing before you are
introduced to the <dtml-var ...> tag

What I am asking would probably take less than half hour for an
experienced Zope developer to explain
and write (at least point 1 and 2).

I hope that someone is listening !