recommended way of generating HTML from Python

[Kent Johnson]

Michele Simionato wrote:
> The problem is a problem of standardization, indeed. There plenty of
> recipes to
> do the same job, I just would like to use a blessed one (I am teaching
> a Python
> course and I do not know what to recommend to my students).

Why not teach your students to use a template system?

> FWIW, here is a my version of the recipe (stripped down to the bare
> essentials)
> 
> .def makeattr(dict_or_list_of_pairs):
> .    dic = dict(dict_or_list_of_pairs)
> .    return " ".join("%s=%r" % (k, dic[k]) for k in dic)
> 
> .class HTMLTag(object):
> .    def __getattr__(self, name):
> .        def tag(value, **attr):
> .            """value can be a string or a sequence of strings."""
> .            if hasattr(value, "__iter__"): # is iterable
> .                value = " ".join(value)
> .            return "<%s %s>%s</%s>\n" % (name, makeattr(attr), value,
> name)
> .        return tag
> 
> # example:
> .html = HTMLTag()
> 
> .tableheader = ["field1", "field2"]
> .tablebody = [["a1", "a2"],
> .         ["b1", "b2"]]
> 
> .html_header = [html.tr(html.th(el) for el in tableheader)]
> .html_table = [html.tr(html.td(el) for el in row) for row in tablebody]
> .print html.table(html_header + html_table)

*Shudder*

I've written web pages this way (using a pretty nice Java HTML generation package) and I don't 
recommend it. In my experience, this approach has several drawbacks:
- as soon as the web page gets at all complex, the conceptual shift from HTML to code and back is 
difficult.
- It is hard to work with a designer. The designer will give you sample web pages which then have to 
be hand-translated to code. Changes to the web page have to be located in the code.
- There is no separation of content and presentation

IMO templating systems are a much better solution. They let you express HTML in HTML directly; you 
communicate with a designer in a language the designer understands; you can separate content and 
presentation.

Kent

>     
>           Michele Simionato
>