Re: [boost] [soc07][cgi] RFC: use-cases/scope

From: Martin Wille (mw8329_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-04-22 13:40:59

Steven Siloti wrote:
> Shams wrote:
>> 2. Easy way to generate the HTML DOM tree
>>   
> This seems to be a commonly requested feature form cgi libraries but is 
> it really that necessary?

No, it's not, IMHO. "CGI" is about a protocol (or about several
protocols if FCGI, SCGI, WSGI, etc get supported, too), "HTML" is just
one of many document formats delivered over that protocol. It really
makes no sense to couple those two tightly.

Additionally, it's more than what I would expect to be done during a
single SoC session.

 It seems to me that it just encourages bad
> habits, i.e. mixing logic and presentation.

Agreed.

 Shouldn't we instead focus
> on providing a convenient template system a la ctemplate but with a more 
> appropriate API?

This makes more sense than supporting a single document format. However,
I think it's also beyond the scope of a CGI library. A template engine
could be useful in non-web applications as well; so it should not get
coupled with a protocol engine, either.

Regards,
m