[Cheetahtemplate-discuss] #def vs. #attr revisited

[Michael H. <ha...@me...>]

Having played with cheetah for a couple weeks, I wanted to add yet
another perspective to the WishList item about a one-line "#def"
statement.  Consider it as you will.  

I basically agree with Ian that being able to do:
#def spam = "This is the value for spam."
to define an argumentless method would be really handy.  

As Ian points out, it makes it easier to access the value from python
(you know it's a method, not an attribute).

But it's also useful from a user consistency point of view.  I'm
writing site templates so that less knowledgeable users can author
good looking, standard-format content.  I need those users to fill in
what are essentially data fields.  Some fields, like "Biography", are
best handled in block form.  Others, like "EmailAddress", are better
handled on a single line (for brevity and to avoid whitespace issues).

To the user who knows nothing about python, these slots are identical.
The user doesn't know about attributes and methods, and doesn't (and
shouldn't care).  Why do I have to explain that one-liners use
#attr and blocks use #def ?  The difference means nothing to them.
It's just one more thing to learn.  Allowing the second form of #def
simplifies the process.

Yes there are districtions between attributes and methods and it's
good that they are accessible from cheetah.  However, for a template
language that it supposed to make authoring simpler, it's the
syntactic flexibility of "#def spam = 'eggs' #" that really matters.
I think #def should be able to handle both fields and blocks.  (For
consistency, #block should probably also have the second form.)

Thanks for (re-)considering this issue!

							--Mike