[Zope] mixing python and DTML is hellish!

[Chris Withers]

kosh@aesaeion.com wrote:
> 
> Can you call ZPT documents from other ZPT documents and so on without
> having them pull in headers, footers etc at each step. 

Yes

> Also how do you
> deal with user agent detection such that you have a page that changes
> depending on the requesting agent so that you have one url to x object and
> x object does not always look the same.

You can have a dynamic macro expansion :-)

> Actually I don't think it is broken since I don't see them as the same
> objects.

Then your thinking is broken ;-)

> location. Overall I don't think of a page as a single document I think of
> it as a collection of objects that each does a job and only that job.

You said that before, and I agree, so how do you handle the case where you haev
a table containing other objects? I half the table in the header and half in the
footer?

> DTML looks to me to fit that concept better then ZPT does.

Look harder!

> However now you have defined it as html which is not always the case.

Gimme some other cases where ZPT wouldn't work, go on, I dare ya ;-)

> Overall that looks more complex to me then just calling the objects and
> allowing them to behave as needed.

That's just because you haven't seen it before, I can assure you its a lot
simpler...

> Actually we have been doing it for a lot more then 6 months now without
> any problems. Introspection and reflection are not really that magical but
> they do allow an object to react based on its surroundings.

I agree, but ZPT does not proven intospection or reflection, it just doesn't
require them.

> How do you select for which user agent that you will be editing the
> source. 

How do you do it using your method?

> Overall if you adhere stricly to the DOM and follow the spec to the letter
> that is not a problem. xhtml 1.0 strict is really not hard and if you use
> it properly and know how the browsers work you can speed up page drawing
> and make it easier to develop.

ZPT has no requirement for xhtml 1.0.

> Overall I am not happy with any generated code from any application I have
> seen so far. They are often embarassinly far from the spec and most abuse
> tables which slows down page rendering.

Have you seen the HTML generated by Squishdot's DTML? ;-)

cheers,

Chris