[pmwiki-users] variables for customization

Patrick R. Michaud pmichaud at pobox.com
Wed Jul 6 20:27:23 CDT 2005


On Wed, Jul 06, 2005 at 08:10:26PM -0500, Jonathan Scott Duff wrote:
> > > Agreeing with everything except terminology.
> > > I'd prefer "placeholder" over "variable" or "markup" - "variable", while 
> > > technically not as out-of-the-question as you make it out, would provoke 
> > > misunderstandings, and "markup" is definitely something else.
> > 
> > "Placeholder" is fine with me, but they really are markup.
> 
> It's a shame they look so much like PHP variables then.  It tends to
> trigger that particular pattern in PHP programmer's heads and thus
> lead to confusion for some.  
> 
> Calling them placeholders makes me want to see "?Group", "?Fullname",
> etc. (Or some sigil other than $). 

I don't think changing the sigil solves the problem.  For example,
looking at markup like

    {?LastModified}
    {?Author}
    {?CurrentTime}

will *still* trigger the "oh, these refer to PHP variables" pattern
in PHP programmers' heads.  That, or it will make them wonder 
why there's a different sigil, and wonder why we didn't use '$', 
or if they should in fact be writing things like

    ?Author = $_SERVER['REMOTE_USER'];
    $FmtV['?Author'] = $_SERVER['REMOTE_USER'];
    $GLOBALS['?Author'] = $_SERVER['REMOTE_USER'];

in PHP program code, or ...

Pm



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