From: Kirk Haines <khaines@...>
Date: 2004-07-26T16:06:39+09:00
Subject: Re: rubyonrails and cgikit comparison

On Mon, 26 Jul 2004 05:34:03 +0900, Florian Weber wrote

> <a href="foo" style="color: <%= (@some_stuff > 3) ? 'red' : 'black' 
> %>">foo</a>
> 
> how would you do this in xml?

I'm finding this discussion fascinating as a discussion of different 
approaches to solving a problem.  This particular example intrigued me a bit 
as while I personally don't like the above sort of mixing of code into HTML, 
I also found that the CGIKit method of dealing with this that Raphael posted 
to be more a more roundabout solution that I like, as well.

Here's Iowa's take on the above:

HTML file:

<a href="foo" style="color: @linkcolor">foo</a>


Code file:

def linkcolor
  @some_stuff > 3 ? 'red' : 'black'
end


Now, my approach to this would, if I were planning ahead, would probably be 
to use a CSS class instead of setting the style directly.  That way all I 
really end up doing is toggling between two different class names, and I let 
the decision on what effect that has on the link's appearance be determined 
in the stylesheet.

HTML:

<a href="foo" class="@linkclass">foo</a>


Code:

def linkclass
  @some_stuff > 3 ? 'link_error' : 'link_normal'
end


CSS:

.link_error {color: red}
.link_normal {color: black}


Either way we are calling a piece of code from the HTML, but the code is not 
actually embedded in there.  If one is working in the designer/developer 
segregation model, one can either not let the designers write any code at 
all with this seperation, or if one trusts one's designers to write code 
like linkclass() themselves, one could structure the code so that while the 
main code file is the repository for the business logic for the page, and is 
the domain of the developer, it require's a seperate code file that the 
designers can use that contains presentation logic that will be used in the 
template.  Something like:


class MyPage < Iowa::Component

  require 'MyPage_layout.rb' # This is the presentation logic file

  # Everything else is business logic for the page.
  # .
  # .
  # .
end


Anyway, glad to see your Rails release come to fruition, David.  Keep up the 
good discussions.  They are very interesting.


Kirk Haines