# Looking for HTML templating system
**URL:** \
**Category:** ruby-talk\
**Created:** [7 March 2004 23:39 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/looking-for-html-templating-system/10463 "2004-03-07T23:39:39Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1
**Author:**  [@Nick\_Faiz](https://rubytalk.org/u/Nick_Faiz)\
**Post date:** [7 March 2004 23:39 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/looking-for-html-templating-system/10463/1 "2004-03-07T23:39:39Z")
Hi,
I’m a Ruby newbie.
```
I've been curious about what Ruby frameworks exist. I've googled and
```
found Amrita; are there any others?
```
Frameworks are necessary but they can be a little over zealous. One
```
of the reasons I’m enjoying learning Ruby is that I’m from a Java
background; imho, the J2EE world falls into confusion from a glut of
frameworks.
```
Andreas, what are you trying to achieve with your forums? Are any
```
pre-existing ruby forums or portals out there?
Nick Faiz
> **···**
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andreas Schwarz [[mailto:usenet@andreas-s.net](mailto:usenet@andreas-s.net)]
> Sent: Monday, 8 March 2004 10:30 AM
> To: [ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org](mailto:ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org)
> Subject: Re: Looking for HTML templating system
>
> Shu-yu Guo wrote:
>
> > On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 07:19:40AM +0900, Andreas Schwarz wrote:
> >
> > > > At that point, it seems smarter to shift your focus from “HTML
> > > > templates to
> > > > put my Ruby in” to “Ruby class that puts out HTML”.
> > >
> > > The problem is that the methods generating html could end up containing
> > > more and more of the functional core of the application, so that they
> > > aren’t easily exchangeable. But I will think about it again…
> >
> > I agree with Andreas here. Templates are templates, there should be no
> > logic
> > in them; they are only presentation. You shouldn’t ask your template
> > writers
> > to learn your programming language just to change how your software looks.
> > If
> > your templates become your code, there is no point in having the
> > templates,
> > just go ahead and embed HTML.
> > ^^^^^^^^^^
> > I did that in the last forum i wrote, and I hate it 🙂
>
> > While it is a given that your templates will grow complex, they do not
> > necessarily have to have code in them.
>
> Most template systems have “if” constructs, iterators etc…
>
> > I think a system like Amrita demonstrates that well.
>
> I won’t use Amrita because it seems to be a real memory and cpu hog
> (haven’t tried the latest version though), and I really don’t see the
> point in parsing the whole template with rexml just to exchange a few
> strings. For big complex sites and with caching, maybe - but not for a
> forum that is intended to have speed as its main (but I hope not only)
> feature.
---
**Author:**  [@Kirk\_Haines](https://rubytalk.org/u/Kirk_Haines)\
**Post date:** [8 March 2004 00:00 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/looking-for-html-templating-system/10463/2 "2004-03-08T00:00:03Z")
There are oodles of them.
Off the top of my head, Amrita, Cerise, Iowa, Borges, CGIkit, SWS, and one
that I am forgetting the name of that was posted about a week or so ago –
it takes templates and data and generates code (Ruby, PHP, several other
languages possible) to generate the HTML.
That’s not all of them, though.
Amrita and CGIkit have the widest userbases, I think. Iowa probably has
the smallest of that list, though I have sites and applications under it
ranging from a handful of lines in a couple of files to large things with
a couple hundred thousand lines.
Kirk Haines
> **···**
>
> On Mon, 8 Mar 2004, Nick Faiz wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> > I’m a Ruby newbie.
> >
> > I’ve been curious about what Ruby frameworks exist. I’ve googled and
> > found Amrita; are there any others?
> >
> > Frameworks are necessary but they can be a little over zealous. One
> > of the reasons I’m enjoying learning Ruby is that I’m from a Java
> > background; imho, the J2EE world falls into confusion from a glut of
> > frameworks.