[plt-scheme] Formlets in PLT

On 25-Sep-08, at 10:54 AM, Jay McCarthy wrote:

> Michael,
>
> I haven't spent a lot of time using formlets just yet. They seem to me
> to be quite elegant in their terseness and ability to hide a lot of
> annoying details, like generating names and composing conversion
> routines. I certainly will not argue that they are "the one true way"
> to deal with forms.
>
> The way I look at it is that they standardize a whole bunch of code
> I've been copying every time I start a new Web app. If your tools are
> equally powerful, I would not advocate change. If yours are more
> powerful, maybe we can improve formlets? [Obviously being class-based
> adds a lot, but I'm wondering at what cost in simplicity.]
>
> Basically, I don't want to argue either way, but I don't want to
> ignore your email. =)
>
> Jay


Thanks for the reply, Jay!

I agree, wholeheartedly, with your observations regarding elegance and
hiding of details, and that's why I posed the question.  I've been  
seeking
to solve these very same problems, while leveraging, as much as  
possible,
the existing direction and efforts of PLT -- I am a commercial  
developer ;-)

Originally, using the HTDP design seemed like the smartest place to  
start,
but, if formlets come to surpass that approach in the PLT community (and
I recognise that won't happen in one day), I'm inclined to throw my own
time and effort behind formlets instead.  Of course, I'm not expecting  
you or
anyone else here to tell me which way the wind will blow :-)

I will take a closer look at formlets and, time permitting, see if I  
can't help
out.  BTW, I actually do prefer the syntactic over everything-as-a-class
approach to solving these kinds of problems; the latter was just the  
easier
for someone not yet fluent with scheme-style macros.

Cheers!

--
Michael Forster
mike at sharedlogic.ca