From: Kendall Clark <kendall@mo...> - 2002-02-19 22:48:14
On Tue, Feb 19, 2002 at 01:50:52PM -0800, Jim Kraai wrote:
> I'm wondering about performance relative to HTMLGen & HyperText, how well it
> integrates w/ WebWare, etc.
I've used it outside Webware and prefer it to both HTMLGen (which is
definitely showing its age) and to HyperText (though HyperText is much
closer to XIST, imo).
Given the maturity of CSS2 and the increasing support for it in "generation
6" browsers (Opera, Mozilla, IE), I think having Python code that generates
plain HTML/XHTML is a better option than it used to be (when HTML had to be
*very* complex because we were all misusing it for layout). It's a
legitimate alternative to stuff like Cheetah, IMO. Especially since it moves
the 'contract' between designers and programmers out of HTML/XHTML (mostly)
and into CSS.
In other words, designers don't know how to generate XML/HTML/XHTML using
Python code, so we build stuff like Cheetah. That's a good thing. But if
everyone involved agrees on the document-level 'interface' (the names and
positions of the various class="" and id="" pieces of the document) almost
all of the design work can now happen in CSS and Photoshop anyway, so
designers not being able to 'see' the markup is, it seems, going to
increasingly be less of a problem than it has been.
I haven't used XIST with Webware yet, but I intend to very soon for a web
forum app I'm working on.
I'd also like to hear if others have done this yet, especially whether
people are using XIST in Page or making XIST-processing servlets or what...
Kendall Clark, Editor