[Zope] DTML vs ZTP

[Johan Carlsson]

Ian Nunn wrote:
> I'm a third of the way through the Zope Book and understand the 
> difference as it is written. As you can appreciate, in learning a new 
> technology, what is missing is the experience that would guide your 
> focus. What I would like is an idea of how real world developers use 
> these in the following senses. Do you use one exclusively (in 
> conjunction with Python)? Do you use primarily one or the other? Do you 
> use both roughly equally? Are there classes of applications where you 
> have found one is preferred? Your advice would be welcome.

My path is a bit against the main stream.
I use DTML exclusively and try to avoid using ZPT.

My reasons is:

1. DTML is faster

2. DMTL is much easier to read and understand. Hence easier to maintain.
    (TAL is (IMO) hard to read and it's hard to format when using in
    tags, and when used with macros it impossible to understand the logic
    of  things.

3. Seperation of logic and content is (IMO) more correctly enforced by
    conventions that technical choises. You can write logic in TAL and
    you can avoid writing logic in DTML. It's all up to you.

4. I know DTML to me DTML is more intuitive that TAL and I can use it
    for every thing including in ZSQL Method.
    DTML work more like other common markup language that TAL.

5. The original the TAL design had requirement to be XML compliant
    and to be able to cloak it self inside the tags to hide it self
    from HTML editing tools. This isn't a real  requirement for me
    so I can ignore it.
    And if I would run my code through a XML parser och validator it
    would be the resulting code I would like to validate anyway.

No this is a controversial view, but that's my view.

Johan