[Seaside] Template system for Seaside + docs

[Colin Putney]

On Mar 25, 2004, at 6:16 PM, Peter Schuller wrote:

> based on the web site and some posts on the list, I am under the  
> impression
> there are now one or more templating systems for Seaside. However I  
> have to
> admit to not keeping a very close track on things.

As the author of one of these template systems, I have to say I have  
very mixed feelings about this. One the one hand, I generally agree  
with Avi's latest blog entry, in that HTML is no longer interesting  
from a design point of view, and so markup-independence isn't as  
important as it used to be.

(See  
http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/userblogs/avi/blogView? 
showComments=true&entry=3257728961)

On the other hand, I don't like HtmlRenderer very much. It works well  
with Seaside's tree-of-components architecture, which templates don't,  
and it's a lot better than printf(), but it's still  
code-that-generates-code, for which I have a general (and possibly  
irrational) dislike.

The gripping hand is that I don't have a better idea.

Now, as far as templates go, I'm very pleased with the Nori model. It's  
simple and elegant and provides the most separation between HTML design  
and application code of any template system I've encountered. It's main  
virtue, though, is testability. It provides a framework for unit  
testing the user-interfaces of web applications. You can make  
high-level assertions like "this component has a link to that other  
component," which I find very useful in terms of real-world definitions  
of "correct" appearance and behaviour of an interface.

In the long term, this is probably something that should be pulled out  
of Nori and incorporated into the main Seaside distribution. I imagine  
that a combination Nori-style assertions and a FIT-like component  
decorator would be a great testing environment for Seaside apps.

In the short term, I'd recommend HtmlRenderer and CSS design -  
SqueakSource is a good example of this done well. If you really do need  
a template system, I'll be happy to provide help for any problems you  
have with Nori.

Colin