Daily Archives: 2003-05-09

pain and suffering

9 May 2003

So, in terms of writing a blog-engine, I have to admit that progress has been glacial, by which I mean non-existent. Or almost anyway; I’ve done some thinking about it, and I’ve done some research into Mason, which looked somewhat promising, but I don’t think I really like it that much.

Of all the templating engines, they’re basically allowing you to write code in your HTML pages. The problem is I don’t particularly like to write HTML at all; I’d much rather write code. The overall metaphor of templating engines seems to be that they are intended to extend the process of writing web pages into writing dynamic web pages. Instead of that paradigm, I’m more interested in writing applications that happen to use a web browser as an interface.

So I’m tempted to write my own templating engine, which would be more like a source code control system. I can definitely see some utility in having a framework to help keep components sorted out, but I’m not settled on the form I want it to take.

In other news, Suzette and I finally got our wedding bands back from the jeweller that made them for us. They’re really pretty, but we have some reservations about the quality of the work. Sigh. On one hand I appreciate how beautiful the design is, and on the other I can see how much better the execution could have been. The rings we had were cast, but they’re from a mold of a filigree pattern, and it’s hard to get the little details right in a casting. I’m on the verge of trying to learn to make filigree.