reviving the 'php sucks' debate.. it's like Bank of America..

[Phillip McCleod]

13. yeh be careful that sounds dangerous..

..your head's liable to asplode.

in that example {{ item }} is a string object of some sort, and 'itemlist' is a list of strings. one might throw that snippet in a template file like 'list.html', then have a view or many views that render to it by passing 'itemlist' in (or to other template files that include it by reference).

i'd use a snippet similar that to render a menu bar, say, or a sidebar (would still need to set CSS styles and need some logic for urls, but otherwise..)

django's a little different in that while it is 'true' MVC.. the 'controller' part is fairly hidden. just map urls to views. so ya end up writing mostly in 'models.py' (corresponding to database tables), 'views.py', and 'urls.py'.. plus your template HTML files that the views render to.

MVC is definitely a different approach to web dev from the old days of static html or mangled php spagballs but for any site that relies either on a database, or on the server doing some actual computation before rendering, it's a joy. what if i wanted to let the end (web) user set parameters and generate a mandelbrot set image? the view could call some normal python script (or exec a system call or extern program) to generate the image before serving up the results.

i know it could be done in PHP with Zend framework, but why stab myself repeatedly in the face with a dull fork? doing it the old (non-MVC) way? that would be a mess. not sure where i would even begin.