Why should I use templating system in PHP? [closed]

Answer 1

I don't think you should use a template engine. Instead you should use something like Zend_View which encourages you to do separate logic from presentation, but allows you to build your presentation layer in PHP.

Answer 2

I'd wager that if a PHP template language was so coercive as to force you to use it, you wouldn't use it at all. The ability to 'jump out' and do things your way when in trouble is one of the attractives of PHP.

I don't say that it's a good thing, nor that the code will be maintainable, just that in the initial considerations, I wouldn't choose a template language that blocked me completely.

Otherwise, I agree that templating systems help you divide work between coding and design, and possibly letting designers design and the coding to us.

Answer 3

PHP is pretty much a templating system. The key is to force yourself to separate logic from presentation on your own. Using Smarty or something like that only makes it slightly more inconvenient to mix logic and presentation. If you can't make yourself separate them on your own, using a templating system isn't going to help. All it's going to do is eat up additional processing power.

The key is to not alter any values in your presentation code. To do this, I think PHP itself is just as effective as Smarty if you use the if/endif syntax:

<?php if($some_test): ?>
   <em>Some text!</em>
<?php endif; ?>

Answer 4

I think that cleaner syntax is quite a big win. Although it may look like only a few characters, but when you do it every day, then each character starts to count.

And {$myvar|escape} is IMHO quite a bit shorter than <?php echo htmlspecialchars($myvar); ?>. (Keeping in mind that <?=$foo?> syntax is only available when it is specially enabled in PHP conf.)

Answer 5

And let us not forget the future. Websites are old almost the minute they are published. You WILL need to update the look and feel at some point. If you maintain separation often times a designer alone can complete a whole new website with the same programming on the back end. This allows for faster and cheaper redesigns, allowing you to only involve the programmer if new functionality is required.

Answer 6

Summarizing, I am adding a few of my thoughts. We should use templating system if it gives possibility to:

1. cache & code compress
2. provide some security layer (how variables are displayed)
3. template inheritance and re-production of the code html (allow to avoid duplicate code)
4. ability to write own plugins/modules for improve writing views
5. "taking care" of translates problem and move this trouble to view layer (in Smarty there is no built-in module but there are good community solutions for this)