Fwd: [UPHPU] Template engines

[Velda Christensen]

Wayne Jensen wrote:
> I'm still not seeing an advantage to using a separate templating
> system like Smarty over using PHP as a templating language.  Perhaps
> I'm missing something?  The designers don't have to learn to be
> programmers and they don't have to learn very much about PHP, only a
> few basic things, just enough to get things to display correctly.  You
> still keep the display logic separate from the rest of the logic.
I can do echos and includes and the basic variable declarations and 
stuff.  I can even make my own mail script (now I _know_ you're 
impressed! ;-)) .If I'm doing a quickie, tiny site on my own that's 
exactly how I do it.  But I don't do those sorts of sites too often.  
Maybe I've just been scarred for life by a few passive aggressive 
programmers, but if I'm working in someone else's php  (where we're both 
working at or about the same time, or where I know there will be 
frequent updates) -- I worry that no matter how careful I am, even if I 
don't touch anything, I'll be the one to blame if anything goes wrong.  
Knowing that I -can't- mess up someone elses work is liberating. :-)

If you want to do that using php.limiting programming access and all 
that, that works too.  But smarty does it already  Oh, and I dig the 
debugging console.  If I've got half a dozen templates or more in one 
page, it's nice to be able to tell easily which template contains what 
content.  I know the other designers I deal with like that too.

re: inline JS and CSS breaking Smarty.. I couldnt' say, I try to keep 
them separated too  0:-p  I'm sure there's a way to make smarty ignore 
it though, a way which I am too lazy/tired to look up right now.  I've 
seen JS and smarty jive well though so I know it's possible.

-Velda