I picked up on this article on
Friday, glanced through it and moved on, but noticed this evening it had
been slashdotted
-- at which point I realized the author is the current CGI::Application
maintainer, so I looked again.
At my first glance through it, it
appeared the author was looking for a nice, easy-to-use pre-processor script
for generating a site out of templates and content files. To that end, he,
in the end, recommended ttree, part of the Template
Toolkit distribution.
However, the real gist of the article -- something that should probably have
been summarized at the end -- is that the author was looking for an free and
OSS replacement for DreamWeaver's Templates functionality. This
functionality allows a developer to create a template with placeholders for
content, lock it, and then create pages that have the bits and pieces of
content. Finally, the developer compiles the site -- creating final HTML
pages out of the content merged with the templates.
Now, I can see something like this being useful. I've used webmake
for a couple of projects, and, obviously, utilize PHP in many places as a
templating language. However, several comments on Slashdot also gave some
pause. The tone of these comments was to the effect of, "real developers
shouldn't use DW; they should understand HTML and code it directly." Part of
me felt this was elitist -- the web is such an egalitarian medium that there
should be few barriers to entry. However, the webmaster in me --
the professional who gets paid each pay period and makes a living off the
web -- also agreed with this substantially.
I've worked -- both professionally and as a freelancer -- with individuals
who use and rely on DW. The problem I see with the tool and others of its
breed is precisely their empowerment of people. Let me explain.
I really do feel anybody should be able to have a presence on the 'net.
However, HTML is a fragile language: trivial errors can cause tremendous
changes in how a page is rendered -- and even crash browsers on occasion.
The problem I see is that DW and other GUI webpage applications create, from
my viewpoint, garbage HTML. I cannot tell you how many pages generated by
these applications that I've had to clean up and reformat. They spuriously
add tags, often around empty content, that are simply unnecessary.
The problem is compounded when individuals have neither time nor inclination
to learn HTML, but continue using the tool to create pages. They get a false
sense of accomplishment -- that can be quickly followed by a very real sense
of incompetence when the page inexplicably breaks due to an edit they've
made -- especially when the content is part of a larger framework that
includes other files. Of course, as a web professional, I get paid to fix
such mistakes. But I feel that this does everybody a disservice -- the
individual/company has basically paid twice for the presentation of content
-- once to the person generating it, a second time to me to fix the errors.
This is a big part of the reason why I've been leaning more and more heavily
on database-driven web applications. Content then goes into the database,
and contains minimal -- if any -- markup. It is then injected into
templates, which go through a formal review process, as well as through the
W3C validators, to prevent display
problems. This puts everybody in a position of strength: the editor
generating content, the designer creating the look-and-feel, and the
programmer developing the methods for mapping content with the templates.
There's still a part of me that struggles with what I perceive as an elitist
position. However, there's another part of me that has struggled heavily
with the multitasking demands made on all web professionals -- we're
expected to be editors, graphic designers, programmers, and more. In most
cases, we're lucky if we're strong in one or two such areas, much less
passionate about staying abreast of the changing face of our medium.
