[Zope] mixing python and DTML is hellish!

[kosh@aesaeion.com]

On Fri, 1 Mar 2002, Chris Withers wrote:

> Roy Mathew wrote:
> >
> > Am I totally off base? Is there some valuable reading that I have missed?
> > How do experienced ZOPErs view this issue?
>
> Yup ;-)
>
> Take a morning, learn ZPT, forever banish DTML back to the pits of hell where it
> belongs and your life will once again be peaceful and happy.

Actually I have to defend DTML on this one. I do think it is a good
solution and so far I like it a lot more then ZPT. ZPT seems to have the
idea that there should be a 1 document to 1 page mapping which I don't
like. I prefer having lots of little objects around that get assembled
together to build a page. Especially when working with smarter objects.
Overall DTML is easier to use with this kind of a model by a good deal. I
doubt there is a simpler way to do <dtml-var header><dtml-var
someobject><dtml-var footer> with all of those being python products,
python scripts etc that know how to behave when called using a little
python magic.

Overall it seems ZPT seems designed for html people that used wysiwyg
editors to write pages. Overall I don't, nor does anyone I work with do
that. The pages written that way just are not as clean as what you can get
from someone that knows the spec and how to use it to their best
advantage.

>
> Use the templating language to do layout, use the python scripts to do logic.
>

This we can agree on. I feel just about everything should be in python and
the page template stuff should just be used for calling the objects.

>

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