[Zope] <% ... %> ?

[Alex Rice]

On Fri, 11 Jun 1999 13:30:28 -0400,
Chris Petrilli <petrilli@digicool.com> said:

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

Yes, in fact, knowing a little python before starting to learn Zope, I
found external methods about as easy to understand as DTML. I'm still
not sure I understand DTML :-)

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

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

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

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

This should be emphasised more in the DTML user's guide. A best-practice
list of things that should and should be done with DTML vs external
methods would be helpful to newcomers.

Alex Rice    |    alrice@swcp.com    |    http://www.swcp.com/~alrice
    Current Location: N. Rio Grande Bioregion, Southwestern USA