On Sun, 2006-01-22 at 05:39 -0800, Cliff Wells wrote: > Markup is simply a data structure rendered in a particular way. Both > XML and Python can adequately describe data structures. Python just > does it without so much typing and clutter.
I don't disagree that a python-based syntax would likely be more terse. Yet, whatever syntax this is, however intuitive, will have to be learned. Theme designers are already quite comfortable with xml. Currently, the canvas system works a good deal like html in terms of its layout model. Giving theme designers an html-like syntax, giving them a simple matrix of elements and attributes, and telling them the layout model works like html, means they can begin coding with I believe a much lower learning curve than the alternative. From our perspective, an XML-based syntax is not especially hard to implement. > Hm. If all you need is some simple "if" statements, what is the > advantage Kid provides over any of the other dozens of Python templating > systems (XML based or not)? If all we need is selection operations with no need for iteration, perhaps it makes sense simply to implement our own simple scheme, without adding another external dependency. Kid has one advantage over non-XML-based templating systems and that's that templates can be passed through existing xml validators. How much that advantage outweighs the disadvantages of using XML syntax for templating I'm undecided. However, in terms of readability, I also prefer Django's syntax. > overkill in this case. Also there are quite a few posts regarding > performance issues with Kid when rendering complex pages, but it may be > MythTV would never hit that level of complexity anyway. I don't know about MythTV, but I doubt Freevo will. :P > Kid. Kid definitely has some "growing up" to do ;-) Cute. :) > Well, assuming then that XML is the way to go, I personally find the > Django templating system far more readable than Kid. The same goes for Django's template syntax isn't XML-based, so it can't be validated before being passed through the template system. But I agree it's a lot easier to read. It also has a good inheritance system. > That being said... this is your project, I'm just wasting your time with > my $0.02 =) I just wanted to offer the "other view" before you > committed to something I personally find distasteful. Not at all. This is the kind of discussion we want to have. Please don't think you're wasting our time. The more information dischi has the better decision he can make. Cheers, Jason.
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