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

[Shane Hathaway]

Paul Winkler wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 04:43:21PM -0400, Shane Hathaway wrote:
>><a tal:attributes="href here/format:url_quote" />
> 
> Where do you put the argument? I don't see some_url.

Oops, I meant this:

<a tal:attributes="href some_url/format:url_quote" />

>>To me, that's a vast improvment, and it's only one example.
> 
> It also raises some new questions that are about
> on par with what would be needed to understand the zope 2 version: 
> What kind of thingie is "format:"? Where can I find it if I want 
> to learn what else it can do?  What do I do if I want 
> format:some_custom_format?  How could I replace or augment
> the format thingie and not break any template that uses it?

It is intended that "format:" refers to a Python module.  You should not 
extend that module, unless you're developing Zope itself.  You'd find 
documentation on it in the Zope Book.  If you need more functionality, 
you can configure your own prefixes.

>>You know what was actually wrong with DTML?  The lack of Python Scripts. 
>> Without Python Scripts, everyone used DTML as a programming language. 
>> Once Python Scripts came around, DTML became a reasonable templating 
>>language again.  If DTML used TALES expressions, it would be just as 
>>clean as ZPT.
> 
> 
> I think I just said this in another post :)

Maybe you didn't draw the same conclusion, then. ;-)  My conclusion: 
since the main problem with DTML had little to do with DTML syntax, 
nothing indicates that ZPT growing pains are going to turn ZPT into a 
monster.  As long as we retain Python Scripts and evolve ZPT slowly, ZPT 
is in no danger of becoming a problem like DTML did.

Shane