[Zope] Re: Java re-invents DTML :-)

Dylan Reinhardt zope@dylanreinhardt.com
Sun, 23 Feb 2003 18:32:05 -0800


At 12:46 PM 2/23/2003, Terry Hancock wrote:
>If you are using a basically static site design, which is
>simply a front-end to a python application, ZPT may be great -- and if it
>solves your organizational problem, very much so.  But if your site is
>basically generative -- being itself restructured by the output of a python
>application, and not a mere vessel for it, then DTML is awfully handy.

An excellent point.

Zope is great for building content management systems, but it's also a 
powerful general-purpose application server.

People doing content management work seem better served by ZPT.  You can 
tell at a glance what the page looks like and what kind of information it 
contains.  But it's also been my experience that constructing a complex UI 
from a large number of context-sensitive widgets is far more easily (and 
readably) done in DTML.

Choosing which language to use should hinge on which language provides 
greater transparency in a given situation.  There's no particularly good 
reason why there *should* be one Zope templating language any more than 
there's a good reason why Zope should run on only one OS.  Zope is a richer 
platform for providing a wider range of choices.

My $.02,

Dylan