Re: Re[6]: [GEN] Template Handler
- Posted by Chris Bensler <bensler at telus.net> Sep 28, 2001
- 440 views
I think the template handler is an excellent idea, but I have no intention of using for reference purposes. That would be such a waste!! IMHO, it makes more sense to use it as a catalog of useful routines and code snippets. Rather than having a library of misc routines of which you will most likely only use one in your code, store it in the template handler to be copied and pasted directly into your code to eliminate the need for including an entire library. PS. you should include an option to strip comments from a selected template for copying. In fact, I would make that default, and have the option for including the comments instead. Chris > Derek, > > Good question. The basic idea is similar to the demos for Win32Lib, except > that a template, at least as I have envisioned it, is just some "snippet" of > code that might be used to accomplish a minor programming task. In that > sense, it's not really a template in the sense of fill in the blanks, but > more a sample of how to get some task done. > > So the problem it's potentially solving is: when someone can't (or can't > easily) figure out how to program some task, if someone has created a > template or sample to accomplish that task, and has shared it, then a user > can pick it out of a "database" and put it in their program. > > What it's good for is mostly helping other-than-expert programmers, > basically, but I would suspect even good programmers could benefit from > having an easy way to save "re-usable" programming solutions in a library of > templates. > > Dan > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Derek Parnell" <ddparnell at bigpond.com> > To: "EUforum" <EUforum at topica.com> > Sent: Friday, September 28, 2001 2:03 AM > Subject: Re: Re[6]: [GEN] Template Handler > > > > Hi Dan, > > I'm not sure if I really understand this Template concept. What problem is > > it solving? What is it good for? > > ------ > > Derek. > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Dan Moyer" <DANIELMOYER at prodigy.net> > > To: "EUforum" <EUforum at topica.com> > > Sent: Friday, September 28, 2001 2:52 PM > > Subject: Re: Re[6]: [GEN] Template Handler > > > > > > > Thomas, > > > > > > You wrote: > > > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > > From: "Thomas Parslow (PatRat)" > > > > > > > > > > > Thomas, > > > > > > > > <snip> > > > > > > > > > I can think of these problems, though: > > > > > 1. there is a possibility/likelihood of duplicate filenames with > > > different > > > > > people submitting various template files, not sure exactly how to > > > handle > > > > > that; > > > > > > > > Maybe encouraging version numbers in the filenames would go some way > > > > to helping with that... Of course it wouldn't really matter what the > > > > files were called, but I guess it would be a bit of a pain for the > > > > user to have to rename files before placing them in the directory. > > > > > > Yeah, I *don't* want people to have to rename files, especially if > they're > > > from a zip! The best solution I thought of so far is that Robert put > all > > > user contributed templates into one folder for download, so if the file > > > names conflict he could change them right there, but that doesn't work > if > > > they're already inside a zip, which they probably would be. Maybe a > > > downloadable "list of already used template filenames", so contributors > > > could see what not to use, but then "email passing in the night" could > > mess > > > that up too, plus it puts an inappropriate burden on Robert to maintain > > such > > > a list. > > > > > > > > > > > > 2. it ends up putting potentially lots of little files on peoples > > drives > > > > > instead of a smaller number of larger files. Of course, the user > > could > > > > > relatively easily manually combine files of identical categories > into > > > one > > > > > file, but I'd hoped to make that kind of thing unnecessary. Or I > > could > > > make > > > > > the handler discern when there are multiple files of the same > > category, > > > and > > > > > ask the user if they want them combined into one file, maybe. > > > > > > > > I'm not sure that's such a bad thing, depends how many it gets to be I > > > > guess :) > > > > > > Well, that a kind of a "reverse" problem: there's no problem at all if > > > people don't submit templates, but that's a worse problem, from my > > > perspective! > > > > > > > > > > > > 3. and there's a kind of "general" problem of how would a user > easily > > > know > > > > > which templates are really new and which might they already have, > > > perhaps in > > > > > a file with a different name or something; I really want to make the > > > process > > > > > of adding (& fixing buggy templates!) *very* easy for the user. > > > > > > > > Maybe each template should have a identifier (name) and version > > > > number, if 2 clash then the one with the highest version number is > > > > used. Would be cool to have an option to see older versions :) > > > > > > Didn't want to have to do that, but may have to at least consider it. > > > > > > > > > > > > But other than that it sounds like a good, simple idea which I > should > > be > > > > > able to implement fairly easily (& that's a big plus too!). > > > > > > > > > > I'll probably give it a try, thanks! > > > > > > > > It's so easy to make suggestions when your not the one who has to > > > > implement them :) > > > > > > Yeah! :) > > > > > > Thanks, > > > > > > Dan > > > > > > > > > > > Dan > > > > > > > > Thomas Parslow (PatRat) ICQ #:26359483 > > > > Rat Software > > > > http://www.rat-software.com/ > > > > Please leave quoted text in place when replying > > > > > > > >