Thanks Dylan, Joshua and Nick (and Amit), for the info! Talk about 6-degrees of separation between the backend and presentation :)
I'm currently facilitating a class learning HTML/CSS/JavaScript as part of a Certificate IV in WebDesign. We've been learning XHTML 1.0 from the start, separating our content/presentation etc., hopefully now as second nature! Now we spend the next 8 weeks or so learning PHP and I'm just rethinking the approach that I've used in the past. Normally we use Larry Ullman's Visual Quick-start guide, as it doesn't assume programming knowledge and is activity based, but it is usually a bit behind (such as not using super-globals $_POST etc). As the Certificate IV course is only 6 months in duration, we really need to stick to the basics of creating a small dynamic site (atm using PHP/MySQL), as the course does not assume prior programming knowledge. Anyway, thanks for all the ideas! I'd certainly like to integrate more XML and xml transforms into the course (currently we only get an overview of XML and its applications such as SVG, SMIL, RSS, XHTML etc). If you have any further ideas, please send them my way! -Michael On Thu, 2004-09-09 at 10:40, Dylan Egan wrote: > Hi, > > >Couldn't agree more. One other suggestion, though, is to extend that > >separation a little further by generating XML with PHP, and then parsing > >that XML into whatever templating engine you end up using. This just > >provides another degree of separation, and reduces the temptation to > >hard-code ANY HTML into your back-end... something which I wish I'd been > >aware of 6 months ago! > > > > > This would be the best choice too, im currently working on a CMS and > we're going to be using XML for the data and straight up XSL for the > transformation (only because PHP5 has great XML capabilities). This > allows us to seperate data from structure. > > >Having your content available in XML will also simplify the presentation > >of content in other formats in the future, if you choose to do so -- > >thinking of syndication (RSS) amongst other things. > > > > > Or converting to WML, or back to plain HTML. > > >>From a standards perspective, this separation just reduces the chance of > >making some early mistakes which will take ages to correct six months > >down the track. > > > > > Just make sure you study the best choices. > > >Joshua Street > > > > > > > > ****************************************************** > The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ > > Proud presenters of Web Essentials 04 http://we04.com/ > Web standards, accessibility, inspiration, knowledge > To be held in Sydney, September 30 and October 1, 2004 > > See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm > for some hints on posting to the list & getting help > ****************************************************** > ****************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ Proud presenters of Web Essentials 04 http://we04.com/ Web standards, accessibility, inspiration, knowledge To be held in Sydney, September 30 and October 1, 2004 See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help ******************************************************
