[antlr-interest] just added a template engine paper to antlr.org

[Terence Parr]

Folks,

I just submitted a paper to the WWW 2004 conference entitled, 
"Enforcing Model-View Separation in Template Engines".  It's on the 
article list page:

http://www.antlr.org/article/list

Enclosed is the abstract that says it all.  Soon, I'll be applying this 
stuff to ANTLR work.  I already have seen StringTemplate do cool stuff 
for building ANTLR 3 code generators :)

Terence

ABSTRACT
The mantra of every experienced web application developer is the same: 
"thou shalt separate business logic from display."  Ironically, almost 
all template engines allow violation of this separation principle, 
which is the very impetus for HTML template engine development. This 
situation is due mostly to a lack of formal definition of separation 
and fear that enforcing separation emasculates a template's power.  I 
show that not only is strict separation a worthy design principle, but 
that you can enforce separation while providing a potent template 
engine.  I demonstrate my StringTemplate engine, used to build 
jGuru.com and other commercial sites, at work solving some nontrivial 
generational tasks

My goal is to formalize the study of template engines, thus, providing 
a common nomenclature, a means of classifying template generational 
power, and a way to leverage interesting results from formal language 
theory.  I classify three types of restricted templates analogous to 
Chomsky's type 1..3 grammar classes and formally define separation 
including the rules that embody separation.

Because this paper provides a clear definition of model-view 
separation, template engine designers may no longer blindly claim 
enforcement of separation.  Moreover, given theoretical arguments and 
empirical evidence, programmers no longer have an excuse to entangle 
model-view.
--
Professor Comp. Sci., University of San Francisco
Creator, ANTLR Parser Generator, http://www.antlr.org
Co-founder, http://www.jguru.com
Co-founder, http://www.knowspam.net enjoy email again!
Co-founder, http://www.peerscope.com pure link sharing




 

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