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Sorry einhverfr I can't reply to your comment - but what I think you're talking about is trying to abstract display for HTML, PDF, LaTeX, whatever into a common

by dools 15y ago

Sorry einhverfr I can't reply to your comment - but what I think you're talking about is trying to abstract display for HTML, PDF, LaTeX, whatever into a common markup language or template, then repurpose that markup for each output format. Does that sound correct? So like, you'd want to be able to have something like: <article> <title><% print article.title %></title> </article> then do something like: $tpl->article = fetchSomeArticleFromTheDb() $tpl->output('template_name',Format::PDF) My argument to that would be that there's no realy need for that abstraction - you don't gain anything by it because you have to have some abstracted output engine that is capable of doing that HTML can already do, which is like, HTML :) Hey, I'd love to continue the discussion, but I think the HN comments are kind of limited in how much they want you to discuss here, feel free to email me iain@workingsoftware.com.au EDIT: oops, code formatting

einhverfr 15y ago
Not really. I will email you though :-) I will probably post something on the selection and design of our templating system for LedgerSMB in my blog too (http://ledgersmbdev.blogspot.com http://ledgersmbdev.blogspot.com) by the end of the week.
einhverfr 15y ago
Just to be clear, I am not entirely hostile to the idea here. I just think that there are plenty of cases where generating high quality printed content or the like doesn't work with it and templating is a lot cleaner in those environments. And when your application already requires templating for a reason like that, adding an entirely different way of handling another output format adds needless complexity. One of the useful applications of dools' ideas is that you could have a mockup which included lorem ipsums or other dummy text. This would make it easier for web developers to test layout. OTOH, as I say, I am not at all convinced that it is a net win for programs that generate multiple formats of output./

by dools 15y ago

einhverfr 15y ago

Not really. I will email you though :-) I will probably post something on the selection and design of our templating system for LedgerSMB in my blog too (http://ledgersmbdev.blogspot.com http://ledgersmbdev.blogspot.com) by the end of the week.

einhverfr 15y ago

Just to be clear, I am not entirely hostile to the idea here. I just think that there are plenty of cases where generating high quality printed content or the like doesn't work with it and templating is a lot cleaner in those environments. And when your application already requires templating for a reason like that, adding an entirely different way of handling another output format adds needless complexity. One of the useful applications of dools' ideas is that you could have a mockup which included lorem ipsums or other dummy text. This would make it easier for web developers to test layout. OTOH, as I say, I am not at all convinced that it is a net win for programs that generate multiple formats of output./