Yep. We are now comparing apples and organges.

Please allow me to start over. Here is what i am passionate about: seeing someone use HERE DOCS to create their own half-baked "templating system" for the generation of HTML documents (i never said anything about LaTeX). Why am i passionate about that? Because i have extensively used HTML::Template and Template with great success, being able to finish on time, and being left with a very, very extensible and easily modifiable system. I am also passionate about it because i have used and seen other technologies that allow you to paint yourself into the corner a few months down the road. The reason i spoke up against your original HERE DOC code is that you cannot convince me that storing HTML inside some Perl code is better than storing HTML inside it's own .html text file. Sure i have to load it into memory ... but this is WEB PROGRAMMING!!! That time is so negligable, but then again, i am not producing LaTeX (and i will probably never have to).

Now then, i am not arguing that HERE DOCS are bad and should be deprecated, i just don't need them. If HTML::Template and/or Template (or HTML::Mason, Apache::ASP, CGI.pm) used HERE DOCS under the hood ... i would still use them! Again, my argument really is not about the technology that was chosen, but the failure to use an existing solution from CPAN.

So, if i have a need to create LaTeX, then i will most definitely look at Text::Vpp ... and i wholeheartedly thank you for introducing me to it. But ... i do HTML and plain old text.

Now then, a small rebutal:
"...From my experience as programmer: you really have messed up your design. What you planed to achieve - separation of code and data - for better maintainability,reusability etc. gets lost."

Well, exactly what have you done with HTML::Template? Until you "figure it out", you will most certainly lose your goal of content/data separation. The tool itself only lends you a hand to successful, maintainable, and reusable seperation. It's up to YOU to see that those goals are achieved. Speaking from my own experience, i failed many times, still stuck in my ways of thinking that certain bits of HTML still needed to be generated from the code. Once i learned what content/data seperation really means, my templates and code started to reflect it.

Now then, when i said i do this for a living, i was talking about Web Application Development ... HTML. For the record, anyone who does that for a living is a fool if they think that HTML::Template and Template are just "nifty tools" - they are quickly becoming necessary tools. Even PHP (which i still use where appriopriate), a templating tool in itself, offers at least two templating tools: Smarty and a PHP HTML::Template.

I am sorry, but your words are still those of someone who has not used these tools enough to give valid critisms ... yet! I want more proof, and not just your opinion. (And i should note that i am very skeptical about people who still use UPPER CASE letters in their HTML tags - that's a big "still stuck in the stone age" flag.)

And finally, for the record - i do not dislike HERE DOCS. I just shouldn't have to use them directly or have to scan through them to find what i have to change. God forbid that a web developer had to do the same ... and no, CSS won't always prevent that from happening! I consider HERE DOCS to be a quick and dirty tool for those quick and dirty moments when i need some quick and dirty results. But, tell me ... what advantage does using a HERE DOC have over 

my $header = qq|<html>
<head>
<title>$title</title>
</head>
|;

[download]
and how do you achieve conditional branches and loops with HERE DOCS? (And yes ... i know that Text::Vpp provides this.) You build them yourself. That is what i was arguing against, and the fact that you just admitted you use an existing CPAN module to "manage" your HERE DOCS only strengthens the spirit of my argument: USE THE CPAN! ;)

But, for text (that includes HTML) ... i will continue to use HTML::Template or Template, simply because each HTML document gets to live where it should: inside an HTML document.

jeffa

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)

In reply to 3Re: The scope of templates by jeffa
in thread I need a title - sucka! :-) by PetaMem

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