From: Bastien Koert > On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 11:06 AM, Bob McConnell <rvm@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > From: Virgilio Quilario > >> That looks nice, but how do I get to the point where I can understand > >> how to use it? > >> > >> I have also looked at the Smarty site <http://www.smarty.net/>, but > >> their documents assume significant experience in building and using > >> templates. > >> > >> Where can I find guidance or tutorials on how to do all of this, > >> starting with only a rudimentary knowledge of HTML and PHP. It would > be > >> best if they also focused on procedural rather than object oriented > >> code. > > > > > > When I started learning smarty, I spent most of my time doing research > > and that's really tiresome and it is so hard to find examples. > > Experimented a lot and listed those what's possible, then applied them > > to my projects. > > > > Now to make them handy I posted them to my site so i can have a look > > whenever and wherever. > > > http://www.jampmark.com/php-programming/16-very-useful-smarty-scripting- > tips-and-techniques-to-make-templates-smarter.html <http://www.jampmark.com/php-programming/16-very-useful-smarty-scripting -tips-and-techniques-to-make-templates-smarter.html> > > > > As a first step, maybe you should see the crash course at smarty > > http://www.smarty.net/crashcourse.php > > Hi Virgil, > > After your last post here, I looked at your site, then the Smarty site. > That was what triggered this question. Templates are a black art to me. > I don't even know where to begin to understand them. Every reference I > have looked at so far assumes that I already understand the MVC pattern, > which is also one of the dark arts. > > Let me put it simply. I can't grok OO. I tried to do OOP for several > years, but it simply does not make any sense to me. As a direct result, > I don't understand the concept nor application of patterns. So how do I > figure out how to use templates without having to absorb those first? > Can I learn enough this way to determine if a site can be converted from > the current state (PHP and XHTML spaghetti) into templates and begin > that transformation? > > Bob, > > You really would need to learn those concepts first OOP / MVC. There is > a learning curve, but you really don't need OOP to be able to do an MVC > style application, but it does make the code neater. > > One of the books that really helped me grok OOP is Head First OOP...another > is Martin Fowlers Patterns of Enterprise Architecture. > > The MVC pattern is explained well in a number of places, but worth > checking out are both the cakephp framework site and the codeingniter site. > > You'll find that there are people from both camps here, pure OOP and other > just as happy with procedural coding styles. Many use both, using objects > to handle common tasks like DB interaction or filesystem processes. Yes, I have to deal with both camps here as well. Of five developers doing PHP at the moment, two are primarily using OOP. But I spent 3.5 years as part of a team developing MS-Windows services in C++. After all that time, I was only able to write basic functions for others to convert into methods or classes. I could eventually find my way around in some of those classes, but it seemed that every time I figured out what was where, somebody "refactored" a major component and I had to start all over again. All I saw was a lot of unnecessary overhead and obfuscation which made little sense in the long run and slowed down both the development and the application. The result was a handful of DLLs that are shared between several products, and each time anything is changed in one of them, every product needs to be retested to make sure nothing got broke and some have to be recertified for PCI-DSS as well. So you are telling me that I can forget about trying to use templates. Since I can not understand OOP, there is no chance I will be able to use them. Just knowing that will probably save me several weeks of frustration. Thank you, Bob McConnell -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
