I just put HTML code into my data model. I have a list-of-objects page. Each object is an instance of an object defined in my data model, derived from a row in a database. Each object needs a pretty link drawn that object’s detailed-view page. So I added a property on my object:
class Message(SQLObject):
def _get_view(self):
"Draw a link to the view page for this message."
return cElementTree.XML("""VIEW""" % self.id)
# Lots of other stuff snipped out.

This is now what my kid template looks like:

I pass in messages and columns; messages is a list of objects and columns is a tuple of strings that map to attributes or properties, like “view”.

I’m happy with this decision. I know I could have manipulated the messages or created some new classes in my controller, but I couldn’t really see any advantage. This way works.

I just don’t want anyone else doing this 🙂

I bought the TurboGears book about two weeks ago, and I have been working through it. I like the book in general, but I agree with the reviewers on Amazon that complain about the number of errors. I can’t think of another programming book that I’ve read with this many errors.

All of the errors I noticed are little glitchy typographical errors, rather than incorrect theory. The authors really do a good job of illustrating the MVC approach to web design, so I’m glad I bought it.

Anyway, this page lists mistakes found after publication, and the community of readers seems to be doing a good job of helping each other out.

I think I might have found another tiny error. This code appears at the bottom of page 109:

class ProjectFields(widgets.WidgetsList):
title = TextField(label="project", validator=validators.NotEmpty())
client_revenue = widgets.TextField(validator=validators.Number())
project_form = widgets.TableForm(fields=ProjectFields(), action="save_project_test")


I don’t see the point in using both TextField and widgets.TextField. But more importantly, I think the indentation is wrong in the last line. I don’t think project_form is supposed to be an attribute of the ProjectField class.

I think the code should look more like this:


class ProjectFields(widgets.WidgetsList):
title = widgets.TextField(label="project", validator=validators.NotEmpty())
client_revenue = widgets.TextField(validator=validators.Number())

# Moved outside the class.
project_form = widgets.TableForm(fields=ProjectFields(), action="save_project_test")


But maybe I’m missing something. I posted to the TurboGears Book mailing list, so hopefully I’ll find out.

BeContrary.com is a very clever idea for a site. This debate on going dutch illustrates how the site works. And this is a good discussion of different styles of python templates.

The site’s author, Will McGugan, wrote up a blog post describing his experience with turbogears here. He says he chose TurboGears partially because he had already worked with CherryPy and really liked it. Will made this remark after talking about SQLObject:

Incidently, I don’t like the way that Python ORMs specify the database schema as Python code. Since the schema doesn’t change when the application is running, I would prefer a simple xml definition that would be used by the ORM to dynamically build classes for each table that could be derived from in the model code.

I like this idea, but instead of writing XML, I would prefer to write SQL and have python parse that to build classes.