Matt Sergeant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> The one thing I think AxKit does really well, that other
> "templating" solutions aren't really designed for, is allowing you
> to build your whole web site with that solution. So for example,
> Mason and EmbPerl are really great for building the dynamic parts of
> your site, whereas (I imagine, from experience) people will build
> the more static parts of their site with just plain HTML.
If they are doing that with Mason, they're making a _BIG_ mistake, as
you are in suggesting it's not well suited for doing static sites.
> Whereas with AxKit the XML + Stylesheets approach applies much more
> broadly to the whole site.
Errr, respectfully, I think you underestimate Mason's capabilities.
www.dorado.com/ is the website for the company I do most of my
contracting with, built entirely in Mason, and it's almost totally
static content, but we make extensive---almost exclusive---use of
Mason's autohandler capabilities coupled with Mason's "object
oriented" features to divorce individual pages from the overall
presentation.
As a result we were recently able to give the entire site a makeover
in roughly three days from start to finish, because it's designed to
largely separate content from templating. We had to change almost no
individual page files, just the autohandler (read: template) that
handles the site, plus tweaking the names of some rollover graphics.
No more work than redoing the XPathScript and tweaking your taglibs,
really.
> Now I'm probably going to get replies to this saying how EmbPerl and
> Mason and (insert other solution) can do this. And I'm sure they
> can. I just think it's more natural with AxKit.
Well, you did write AxKit---I'd hope it'd be natural. :-)
I've looked at AxKit a lot, and I think it's a great tool that I want
to use---now that there's a Debian package so I don't have to do the
work to get it installed. The next static site I do for myself, I'll
probably try out AxKit---though I just admit that I'd like to see XSLT
support, too---but I also think you do Mason a disservice.
I will make the caveat that I think I've been using Mason for three
years now---almost since it's first public release---and I've built
many a static web site with it. I've even got a site that uses XSLT
to do transforms of XML files which are then handed off to Mason.
Mike.
