[Klug-general] Web Scripting Languages

[Mike Evans]

MacGyveR wrote:
> On Saturday 06 Jan 2007 22:30, Karl Lattimer wrote:
> 
> anyway this argument is void as why would you want to mix programming logic 
> with HTML layout?
> 
> you want to abstract these layers.
> 
Indeed you do want to abstract these layers, and most of the 
technologies in use have been trying to get the boundary right for 
sometime.  (JSP and its friends.)

So you start off with just a servlet and you end up having to come up 
with things which output bits of HTML.  That was hard - especially if 
you have lots of HTML and a bit of active content.  So then you go for 
something like ASP/JSP, which switches the focus the other way so that 
you write the HTML and put in scriptlets where you just need a bit of 
code.  Sadly that doesn't work terribly well either unless your code is 
very simple.

Enter the taglib - a way of hiding your code to make it look like it's 
HTML.  Well fine - but we're not fooling anyone really are we? This is 
about as good as it gets in my experience, but the level of abstraction 
is far from complete and it's hard to see how it could get any better.

Everything else I've seen just complicates matters by separating things 
more to the point where you pick up an application and unless you can 
digest several complex configuration files simultaneously (way beyond me 
I'm afraid) you're completely flummoxed.

Admittedly I'm not a front end specialist.  (Back end stuff more my 
thing.) So I'd be interested to hear other's experiences if it's not 
taking the thread too far off topic.

I can see the pub on Friday might lead to some interesting discussion :-)

Mike