Jonathan Revusky wrote:
[snipped since the following is really the crux of the matter]
The mantra that you want a presentation tool that is deliberately
underpowered is getting a bit stale at this point in history. It's a
line that is overused in this community, because like the "stability"
mantra, it is a ready-made rationalization for doing nothing. In fact,
you can do nothing, and point to what a wonderful job you're doing.
"Look how stable our product is. Look how feature poor it is. Isn't
that great?"
I think that, by now, most web app practitioners take that kind of
thing with a great big grain of salt. IMO, it's based on a
misconception about Model-view separation. The misconception is that
presentation-related logic is *necessarily* simple. Like any other
programming logic, it is *preferably* simple, and maybe *usually*
simple, but not _necessarily_ so. Or _always_ either.
Having an underpowered presentation tool basically causes you to have
to put things that really are presentation logic in your java
application layer, and runs *against* MVC. That's what you're running
into when you say in an earlier note:
"However, what I couldn't do in the template, I did in my controller
and stuffed into the model. Not elegant, but it worked."
One point. MVC doesn't apply well to web apps. I have been preparing
an article as to such I hope to get published. The basis of which is
the reason the term model 2 was 'invented'. model 2 is a hacked up
version of MVC to allow for what some call 'display logic' (and other
horrid terms) to be allowed in your view. But I digress.
As I said earlier, the google search was months ago when I started down
this template path. btw, google on 'template engine' and freemarker
shows up on page 10. I know it isn't a very specific search. as for
'java template engine' if you don't dig down into links, freemarker
makes its first showing direct result on page 3. So, if I knew nothing
about freeMarker, I doubt it would have caught my eye at all. And
obviously it didn't.
Evaluated: StringTemplate, jamon, JByte(seemed like a feeble attempt)
and Velocity.
Keep in mind, I am not a anti-jsp guy(based on the 'alternative to jsp'
mantra). Said a different way, I almost exclusively use jsp. I was
looking for a template engine for a very specific small subset of my
view layer. I simply wanted a template for previewing certain datasets,
templating emails, etc.
I feel we get wrapped up in the analysis paralysis issue. So, as I
have already expelled resources for this project towards velocity, that
is where I am staying. If I was to derail that now, I would have to
expend more resources to replace velocity with something else. mid
project doesn't make any sense, eh?
As for why I would contribute to velocity? and not freemarker? or
other? the fact that the "lead developer" hangs out in velocity's dev
mailing list to try and recruit/bad mouth the competition. A projects
dev list is for that projects developers. Seems strange you are here at
all, but I am a 'new guy' here. That is my last word on the subject.
Kind regards,
Shawn McDermott
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