I posted some loaded leading questions for the deathmatch (which Kid has good answers for):
http://snakesandrubies.com/event Regarding templating languages: Is the templating language you use 100% XML compatible, so it can be written and edited and generated and processed by any XML tool, or have your added any kind of special syntax that makes it incompatible with pure XML tools? If so, why is that syntax so important that you would sacrifice XML compatibility? Was there any other way to achieve that goal, than breaking XML compatibility? Do you plan on implementing your own tool chain and development environment that can handle your unique syntax (like Microsoft supports ASP's quirky syntax with their tools), or changing your templating language to be compatible with the standard XML syntax that the rest of the world uses? Does your templating language expose the undiluted underlying scripting language it's written in, or do you try to provide a "simpler" (or "safer") application specific scripting language tailed for templating? If so, what's wrong with the underlying general purpose language, that you choose not to expose it directly? How is the new language you invented better than the underlying scripting language, and how is it weaker? Are you planning on incrementally adding more and more power to it as an afterthought, or did you design everything you needed into it from day 1? Do you plan on providing tools for developing and debugging your unique template scripting language, or do you plan on supporting the underlying standard language the templating system is written in? An example of what I mean: Zope has a templating language called TAL, which is 100% XML compatible, but instead of embracing Python, has its own mini expression language (TALES expressions), complex control structures (loops with special "convenience" functions to tell if the index is the first, last, even, odd, etc), and uses restricted Python instead of providing full access to Python, etc. The goal of restricted Python for templates was that untrusted people could write TAL templates. Do you think that's a realistic goal, and worth crippling the system for trusted Python programmers? Do you let untrusted programmers write templates on your site? -Don
