[UPHPU] Template engines

[jtaber]

cole at colejoplin.com wrote:
> Quoting "Daniel C." <dcrookston at gmail.com>:
>
>> On 10/23/06, cole at colejoplin.com <cole at colejoplin.com> wrote:
>>> That is quite a feat. I'm impressed. Since I know for a fact that you
>>> aren't a run-of-the-mill designer, I'm not surprised that your group
>>> reflects the same capalilities. I would never underestimate a
>>> designer! Just like programmers, sometimes you have a mixed bag of
>>> interest.
>>
>> Oh come on.  Designers are humans with the capacity for logical
>> thought just like programmers are humans with the capacity for
>> creativity.  Most people of average intelligence can learn to be quite
>> good at just about anything.
>
>
> Of course they have the capacity! Geez. I'm not saying that. Let me 
> explain. The lack of interest had as much to do with time. It wasn't 
> an attitude thing of not wanting to do it because it was logical. It 
> was more like "Help me out here, I'm busy, and learning a tool that 
> may be a fad isn't where I want to spend my time." And if they're 
> swamped with design work, and you're wanting to tack on some extra 
> tool they need to start using, a manager could raise an eyebrow, and 
> ask if that's really necessary.
>
> I just thought it was cool that Wade's group was doing command line 
> svn. Having a repository of design source files is pretty necessary in 
> my book. That's a very different task than learning some template engine.
>
It's all about "simple and easy to understand".  I've found the secret 
is to develop simple How-To's , kind of what I call the "VCR Quick 
Start" - you know the 6 step guide so that anyone can immediately work 
the thing.  And apply the 20-80 rule - that 20% of the commands gets you 
80% of the functionality (actually I find it more like 10-90).  ie. 
there are only 2-5 commands that most people need for using SVN.  A 
little cheat sheet of these and any competent employee should be able to 
use them.    Same applies to CSS though with a few more commands.   If 
it's more than 1 page, it's too complicated.    Now what would be cool 
is if we could decide upon a standard format (txt, html, wiki, odt, 
....) so we can post and share.  I'm making one up right now with  
postgres commands.   However, I'm still not convinced that Smarty can be 
made simple enough - still think this stuff belongs under the hood in a 
dreamweaver like program.