|
|
Posted by pittendrigh on 01/24/07 14:12
Someone wrote:
> The database and the code are not only interrelated, they are
> married, or perhaps they are blood brothers, they can never be separated.
> The code has to know about the structure of the tables.
This is true in the general relational tables case, but not in all
cases.
Html is inherently hierarchical. It can be modelled and stored in
hierarchical structures, where each
node in the hierarchy represents a widget or div or paragraph in the
page,
and each such node can be adorned with a node_type attribute that
permanently ties it to a particular display behavior.
If you work with two *semi-mirror-image* hierarchies: one for defining
page layouts
and one for defining the data that gets pasted into its matching layout
hierarchy,
then it's possible to make a semi-automated system that works from a
point
and click editor, rather than the keyboard of a programmer.
Each page-type display hierarchy may have many data sets that can be
pasted
in, to make an arbitrary number of page instantiations for that layout.
To make each page the code loops through both hierarchies, pasting data
into
nodes in the layout, and then renders each node by default behavior.
When a system works that way you do not have to change anything about
the display code when the data changes. All you need is a point and
click
editor that creates hierarchical display definitions and the mirror
image
data sets to paste into the displays. Once you have the editor, you
never need the programmer again.
In other words you have a form that creates a form that defines a
layout
as a hierarchy. The rest can happen--forever--as drag and drop and
click.
Navigation:
[Reply to this message]
|