From: David Heinemeier Hansson <david@...>
Date: 2004-07-26T21:34:35+09:00
Subject: Re: rubyonrails and cgikit comparison

> Let me return the question: don't you think there a gain if the ruby 
> and html coders are different persons? (One gain being that none can 
> break the
> other part's work, like mentioned in my previous mail)

I think I have some perspective on this considering that Basecamp was 
built using Rails with a separate HTML/design guy and separate 
programmer. The way that we worked, the HTML-guy prepare a template 
with just HTML. He then passed this template over to me where I could 
sprinkle conditions, iterations, and insertions over it using eRuby 
blocks. Many times, the code that needed to be in the template files 
were too complicated, so that was split into helpers.

Now, when this sprinkling was done, I passed the template back to the 
HTML guy. And considering that all the scriplets were pretty much 
self-explanatory:

   <% for post in @posts %>
     <%= post.title %>
   <% end %>

and..

   <% if @person.authenticated? %>
     Hi, Mr. <%= @person.name %>
   <% end %>

It was very easy for the HTML guy to move that stuff around. Put more 
things into the authenticated? block, move the scriptlets up and down.

What the HTML guy didn't do was the initial logic. The reason for is 
that this logic changed from page to page. The listing for Milestones 
wouldn't use the same methods as would the Todo lists and so on.

And the HTML guy couldn't really make any new templates in isolation 
anyway. You need some kind of controller action pulling the right 
things out of the database and so on before you pass on to the 
template. The HTML guy were never going to do those methods, so the 
benefit of having him be able to do the initial sprinkling on his own 
was pretty insignificant -- in our case, anyway.

Hopefully this serves as a clarification for what Rails is comfortable 
having designers and programmers do.
--
David Heinemeier Hansson,
http://www.rubyonrails.org/  -- Web-application framework for Ruby
http://www.instiki.org/      -- A No-Step-Three Wiki in Ruby
http://www.basecamphq.com/   -- Web-based Project Management
http://www.loudthinking.com/ -- Broadcasting Brain
http://www.nextangle.com/    -- Development & Consulting Services