[geeklog-devel] caching template library

[Joe Mucchiello]

At 02:25 PM 11/1/2007, Tony Bibbs wrote:
> I hear you, I agree mostly with everything which has to be shocking
> for even you given we don't see eye-to-eye at all.  Much of the
> inefficiencies of the current PHPLib is the fact it doesn't support
> looping and basic IF logic.  The result is we have a ton of tiny
> templates which could go away and we get back the I/O required to
> open/close then open/close, etc.  So yes, what I am suggesting is a
> wholesale switch which would require significant code changes.  That
> doesn't bother me because of what you get in the end.

I actually think my changes eliminate that. Remember inside the PHP
engine the second call to "include" doesn't hit the file system, it
accesses the already encoded data structure created from the prior
include. So making little templates is not a problem. In fact, I think
the expensive part is the "new Template()" call. Do that in a static
(for often created templates, such as one that might handle
select/option style stuff) and you cut down the overhead even more.

Also, Geeklog doesn't take advantage of the set_block stuff as much as
it could. That would cut down on the number of individual template
files.

> And as far as escaping output by default, that is a requirement in
> my opinion.  I don't care how many :h's you do...when you do a :h
> (or whatever syntax it is) you have to ask yourself hey, do I really
> want to allow HTML/JS, etc?  It errors on the side of
> security...another GL trait.

And GL often drops intended backslashes because it over processes
certain strings. GLs string handling is atrocious at times. Too much of
GL generates HTML and stuffs it into a single template placeholder
variable. Those variables must ALWAYS be :h. :h is not a choice made by
the theme maker, it is made by the coder. Until you break the coder of
the habit of taking that decision away from the theme maker, the need
for defaulting to htmlspecialchars is meaningless.

> As for the lang stuff...happy will be the day that $LANG01 goes away
> complete for something actually readable.  But if we get the template
> thing licked I can hold off on that complaint.

Do you also dislike $LANG_ADMIN['save']? $LANG01 is obviously lacking
but later day $LANG variables aren't so cryptic.

> Also, don't forget the ability to call functions...not being able to
> do that is a real f'n pain.

And as I said, my library lets you put <?php echo blah(); ?> anywhere
in any template now. Can't beat that, really.

> It's a matter of When not If this happens.  To me this is a question
> of being lazy and taking the easy route or biting the bullet and
> reaping the benefits.

I don't see the When. All the thing you talk about make me wonder why
you are bothering with a template library at all. Where's the template?
You want to call a function? You want loops and ifs? Why are you
creating an interpreted language and running it under PHP? Set_block
can usually solve the looping problem. 

But, I think we've drifted off topic. Your When certainly won't be part
of 1.5.

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