[Zope] <% ... %> ?

Michael Bernstein mbernstein@profitscape.net
Tue, 15 Jun 1999 11:23:04 -0700


Jules Allen wrote:

> I do understand your previous statement about separation of 'reporting' and
> 'logic' and I think it's a good one. However, from a user perspective, I
> only know how to clumsily use a hammer (DTML) right now so everything looks
> like a nail to me. Separation of Church and State is a lofty goal and both
> bleed into each other's turf.

I think that part of the problem is that DTML needs to be a document
building language that can create HTML, XML, or what have you, so trying
to recreate DTML in a variant of XML seems problematic.

There is currently no standard 'eXtensible Server Side Parsed Markup
Language'(XSSPML) ;^) , and I think trying to shoehorn vanilla XML into
this role would be a mistake. XHTML seems somewhat better, but not by
much.

When support grows for an extensible language for doing 'web server
things', then DC should implement it, as an editor program that supports
it should be able to get everything it needs from some form of DTD in
order to understand the Zope specific tags.

Such an editor would arguably need three basic views: a server-side
source view, a client-side source view (after server-side parsing), and
a client-side WYSIWYG view (after client-side parsing).

Currently, no single editor provides this three way view (unless you add
in a browser and view source), because currently no one is drawing a
sharp distinction between languages parsed on the client (HTML, XML) and
languages parsed on the server (DTML, etc.). Ideally, one would be able
to make the appropriate kinds of changes in each view, and have the
changes trickle up and down to the other views.

Until that happy day arrives, simplifiying DTML syntax and using Python
external methods should suffice.

I would much rather DC focused on the Zope interface, object system, and
underlying machinery.

01 (just my two bits),

Michael Bernstein.