Internet Woes.

[swestrup]

Have you ever wanted to send EVERY internet developer back to school with a large "GET A CLUE" tattooed on their forheads?  I mean, this is ridiculous! All I want is server side variable definition and deployment. The functional equivalent of C's preprocessor would be fine. Something that works like BASH or MAKE variables would be equally useful. M4 would be a dream. All of these technologies were perfected over 30 years ago, so why can't I find anything remotely as good on the internet today?

Oh, there are TONS of languges that have server side embedding and every single one sucks big ones. Larry Wall was right when he said "Simple tasks should be simple to do".  I want to have a system where I can define a variable, and where I can have that variable replaced with its value wherever it appears. The only reasonable example I've found is the proposed (and unlikely to ever be approved) syntax for variables in CSS:

@define block_color { #FFEE07 };
H1 { background-color: &block_color; text-color: red; }

I specifically DO NOT want to have to type a lot to use a variable. Something like <$&block_color$> is already too wordy, and is just barely acceptable. So far I haven't found anything THAT good. This disqualifies SSI: <!--#echo var="foo"--> and PHP: <?echo $foo?> and MOTO: <$print $foo;$> and MIVA: <VAR>foo</VAR> and iHTML, Neoscript, Meta-HTML, ePerl, Escapade and EVERY of the other dozen or so script languages that I looked at today.

Here I was thinking I could save myself some trouble and just use something public rather than rolling my own. Nope. The whole internet infrastructure is just waist deep in pure crap. Someone get me a tactical nuclear cluebat, because the Internet SO needs to be whomped with one.

Comments

[thebabynancy.livejournal.com]

*doesn't want to get whomped with anything other than a NERF(TM) bat*

Thanks! :)

Re:

[swestrup]

Gee, I dunno. If I start making exceptions for people just because they're cute and bat their eyelashes at me, and where would we end up when the cluebomb falls?

*sudden image of a mass orgy in the bunker*

*blinks*

Yeah, okay. You're off the hook.