[Zope] Re: What causes the community to stall so often?

Lennart Regebro lennart@regebro.nu
Sun, 10 Mar 2002 21:38:40 +0100


> Why not just fix DTML so it isn't so ridiculously
> hard to document and use?

The things that make DTML hard to use are mostly non-fixable. Anothe
non-fixable thing is that HTML with DTML dotted around is not editable in a
HTML editor. ZPT fixes that. This doesn't mean DTML can't be improved, of
course, but I personally don't agree that the improvements you point out
make dtml that much easier to document or use.

The main "hardship" with dtml is that you end up with two independant
language structures, DTML and HTML, where you often are forced to break the
HTML structure with DTML structures. It makes the code messy, and it is one
of the reasons why you can't use HTML editors to edit DTML-code. ZPT tries
to fix that.

I don't think DTML is a failure, neither do I think Zope corp claims it is.
DTML could be viewed as the Zope equivalent of for ASP, and it is much, much
better than ASP will ever be. Is it a failure then? No, but it had
non-fixable problems. Problems that any language with the same basic
structure will have. But of you preferr thisover ZPT take at the problem,
then you can still use DTML.