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Templating, the correct way

Forget templating engines. They're history. They're slow, they over-complicate things, they don't give you any real benfits over this method, and occassionally, just occassionally, they steal lollipops from small children.

So what is this new method of templating I hear you ask? Well, it's really simple, it's been around since PHP 3.0, and it's built into every single installation of PHP. I introduce you to... the mighty include() function, and the traffic stopping alternative syntax for control structures.

Consider the following sample template code (taken from the template engine you can download on the left):

<INCLUDE FILENAME="header.html">

<IF NAME="if_var">
<table>
        <LOOP NAME="table_rows">
        <TR>
                <TD BGCOLOR="#DDDDDD">{column_1}</TD>
                <TD BGCOLOR="#DDDDDD">{column_2}</TD>
                <TD BGCOLOR="#DDDDDD">{column_3}</TD>
        </TR>
        </LOOP NAME="table_rows">
</table>
</IF NAME="if_var">

Garbage. Absolute garbage. Honestly, what on earth was I thinking when I wrote that tripe? The idea here is that the tags are parsed by the template engine and an appropriate action taken. So the include tag is replaced by the contents of the file "header.html", and the table is filled with the contents of the "table_rows" variable if the variable "if_var" equates to true.

But whats the point? Check this out:

<?include("header.html")?>

<?if($if_var):?>
<table>
    <?foreach($table_rows as $t):?>
        <tr>
            <td bgcolor="#dddddd"><?=$t['column_1']?></td>
            <td bgcolor="#dddddd"><?=$t['column_2']?></td>
            <td bgcolor="#dddddd"><?=$t['column_3']?></td>
        </tr>
    <?endforeach?>
</table>
<?endif?>

Now how wonderful is that? A true work of art. Could perhaps be even confused with the work of Michaelangelo. Or maybe one of the other turtles. Here we have exactly the same functionality as the previous, at a miniscule of the expense (performance wise), and far, far more extensibility, since all of PHPs galaxial functionality is available. And all you have to do is call include() at the bottom of your script to drag it in. Wonderful.

Now lets dispell a few comments that, doubtless, will be excreted:

• HTML monkies find PHP too complex.
  Crap. Any HTML monkey that can't handle the above should kill themselves right now, and allow the collective IQ of the world rise a few points.
  
  
• Separation of content from business logic
  Crap. The logic of creating the front end can not be separated, since the front end depends on the logic. If conditions and loops are available in virtually every template engine so this argument is a little moot.
  
  
• Some template engines cache the output, so it improves performance.
  Crap. Don't use a template engine in the first place and you won't have quite such a performance problem. Not only this, but do things the correct way (ie. my way) and your templates will be cached by your php accelerator (you are using an accelerator aren't you?). Bear in mind some accelerators only cache files with a given extension...

So there you go. Don't use template engines, use PHP. Enjoy.

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