[Zope-dev] Re: TALES idea: tuple unpacking

[Paul Winkler]

On Wed, Jul 23, 2003 at 02:04:51PM -0400, Fred L. Drake, Jr. wrote:
> There are those that consider using python: expressions in ZPT should
> be discouraged, primarily because it's yet another syntax for a web
> developer to learn.
> 
> I'm not necessarily one of them, but I am sympathetic with that
> reasoning.

I'm definitely not one of them. I am sympathetic with the impulse
- don't place too many burdens on the web developer - but I think that
in this case it's misguided. I don't mean to be harsh, but
I feel very strongly about this:

I think it is wrong to think that one can be an effective web developer 
with zope and never have to write a single python expression.
WHen I started using zope, lots of people were trying to build
entire applications with nothing but DTML and propertysheets
and the like. The result was some really horrid DTML.
I am still maintaining some of this gunk, and I'm really looking
forward to the day I can finally rewrite our oldest running zope apps.

The solution to DTML-from-hell was to refactor the logic into scripts 
written in - guess what - python. This is now widely regarded as 
best practice for quick through-the-web scripting and site development 
in zope.

I always thought that one of the key design goals for TAL/TALES was to
be very minimal and *force* the developer to offload anything difficult 
into python.  I think ZPT is successful partly because of this feature.

My concern is that ZPT will grow so many conveniences that it will 
become easier to abuse it in the same way that DTML has been 
widely abused. New zope developers will then be more tempted to
avoid python ("i don't have time to learn another language") and
with the best intentions will do themselves a serious disservice: 
a lot of things will still be unnecessarily difficult compared to 
using python, and a lot of logic will be in templates where it 
doesn't belong.


-- 

Paul Winkler
http://www.slinkp.com
Look! Up in the sky! It's LORD MC-FJUKER!
(random hero from isometric.spaceninja.com)