[Zope] <% ... %> ?

[Chris Petrilli]

> here here; the current zope dtml syntax is really a nightmare. I would

I don't disagree that the current syntax is quite baroque in the mode
that it is used by many people for many projects---many times because
there is no other option.  However...

> be even more extreme and as has been suggested elsewhere 
> would use some
> open and close delimiters to contain arbitrary python. 

Blah, no this again violates the paradigm that we are trying to push,
which is that you keep your logic code as much out of your presentation
code as possible. By allowing this inclusion, I think you're only
reverting to the ASP model, which is a serious step backwards.  

One might even argue that the painfulness of the current syntax
encourages people not to write much in DTML :-)  Unfortunately, we've
not done a great job of giving them something else to use.  This *will*
change very soon I hope.

The concept of call is that it will be used to do some very basic
things, like:

	<!--#call "approveEntry()"-->

You wouldn't want to implement approveEntry in DTML.  At least not if it
was more than a couple lines of code.

I hope what I'm saying makes sense, because I think a lot of people are
still approaching Zope from the mindset of CGI, PHP, ASP, etc., where
you have code, logic and presentation all mingled in the same file.
That's not what Zope is designed to encourage, just the reverse... we
want you to seperate it as much as possible, because then you can gain
re-use of data AND logic.

Chris