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

From: Darren Garvey (lists.drrngrvy_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-04-22 17:07:25

Hi Martin,

On 22/04/07, Martin Wille <mw8329_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>
> 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.

I agree. I've played with having html helper classes with CGI libraries in
the past, but I don't think including it suits either Boost or C++.

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

Ok.

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.

Jeff Garland sent me a link ( http://tinyurl.com/6v5vx ) which mentioned a
need for html/xml/soap stream formatting libraries too. The best I can do
for now is to make the library c++-stream and Boost.Iostreams compatible,
and wait for the other libraries to come around.

Thanks for the comments,
Darren