[From Coding Horror: You’re Doing It Wrong]

Jeff Atwood talks about templating engines (for generating html) being wrong… and I agree, with code like this:

<%foreach (var User in Users) { %>
<div class="action-time"><%= ActionSpan(User)%></div>
<% if (User.IsAnonymous) { %>
<div class="gravatar32"><%= RenderGravatar(User)%></div>
<div class="details"><%= RepSpan(User)%><br/><%= Flair(User)%></div>
<% } else { %>
<div class="anon">anonymous</div>
<% } %>
<% } %>

But, and I might be biased here, the WebObjects approach is much more pure, much more clean, from a markup vs. code point of view.

A quick crack at something similar in WebObjects would look like:

<webobject name="UserRepetition">
<div class="action-time"><webobject name="UserActionSpan"/></div>
<webobject name="IsAnonymousConditional">
<div class="gravatar32"><webobject name="UserGravatar" /></div>
        <div class="details"><webobject name="UserRepSpan" /><br/><webobject name="UserFlair" /></div>
    </webobject>

<webobject name="IsNotAnonymousConditional">
<div class="anon">anonymous</div>
</webobject>
</webobject>

With a bindings file looking like this:

UserRepetition: WORepetition {
    list = users;
    item = currentUser;
}
UserActionSpan: SomeOtherCustomWOComponentToDisplayThisThingMaybe {
}
IsAnonymousConditional: WOConditional {
    condition = currentUser.isAnonymous;
}
IsNotAnonymousConditional: WOConditional {
    condition = currentUser.isAnonymous;
    negate = true;
}
...

Not too bad, eh? If you’re looking for separating your presentation from your code, well… I don’t think there’s anything better. But then, like I said, I’m biased.

It’s such a shame, with all the comments, that not a one has brought up the Old Lady…