Ruby Forum Ruby on Rails > Performance of Markaby, XmlMarkup, Haml Haiku and Malline?

Hi all

I just stumbled over some template engines that claim to make live
writing clean HTML easier.
I am a quite experienced HTML programmer, who has no problems creating
clean, maintainable, valid XHTML code. So I wondered what great benefits
I would have from using such template engines except the computing
overhead they produce. ;-)

Is there any big advantage why one should switch to using one of them?
Or are the benefits too small regarding the computing overhead?

Thanks for your opinions,
Josh

I use HAML. I also have no trouble creating valid XHTML but then I tried 
HAML. Unfortunately, it is hard to explain why it is awesome. First, it 
removes the unnecessary cruft from html. It brings html into a much more 
DRY form. So

<div id="example-1" class="example">
  <p class="hello">
    this is an example
  </p>
</div>

becomes

#example-1.example
  %p.hello
    this is an example

it may not seem so amazing now but comparing full html documents with 
haml, the haml is more concise, easier to change, and it is much easier 
to see quickly the general flow and hierarchy of the document.

I have done benchmarking on the HAML vs ERB and frankly the rendering 
speed of HAML is never the bottleneck in an application and the 
rendering difference is barely noticeable in a real-world environment 
with proper caching, etc.

There are more benefits but I will stop there. You should really just 
try an alternative templating language on a single project. If it 
doesn't fit your taste, you can always go back to the default at any 
time.

Haml is only 5-12% slower than ERB when ran through ActionView according 
to
it's release notes.

It saves a crap load of time too by not having to repeat yourself (such 
as
putting end tags for everything) It also makes it all much nicer when 
your
code is indented exactly how it should be instead of all resting on the 
left
margin. It's such a beautiful language, and Nathan gave an 
almost-perfect
example of its use.

#example-1.example should be just [example], as this will create a div 
with
the id of example_#{example.id} and a class of example.

Heh, thanks Ryan. I wasn't even aware of that little gem with the square 
brackets. You prompted me to go read the full haml reference again.

Ryan Bigg wrote:
> Haml is only 5-12% slower than ERB when ran through ActionView according 
> to
> it's release notes.
> 
> It saves a crap load of time too by not having to repeat yourself (such 
> as
> putting end tags for everything) It also makes it all much nicer when 
> your
> code is indented exactly how it should be instead of all resting on the 
> left
> margin. It's such a beautiful language, and Nathan gave an 
> almost-perfect
> example of its use.
> 
> #example-1.example should be just [example], as this will create a div 
> with
> the id of example_#{example.id} and a class of example.

Okeydokey, it sounds interesting. So although I'm quite proud of my 
precise XHTML skills I'll take a look at HAML. :-)

Hi and thanks,

this thread encouraged me to take a look at haml.  With a busy
schedule it is always a balance as to whether to carry on designing
and writing code or stop and look at ways to be more efficient.  So I
stopped and looked and yes - very nice.

Not only does haml simplify the view enormously (and the future amount
of typing), but it has an impact on helpers too.

I had a table row that used a helper to generate a complex string to
insert into the tr tag to provide the following:

-mousein and mouseout styles
-an onclick url based on the row item
-odd/even styling.

When I converted to haml, I was stuck for a few minutes on this, but
the documentation is very good.  And so after a few minutes I had
removed a substantial amount of clutter from the helper and converted
my string construct to a hash called like this from the haml view:

%tr{onclick_list_haml(product_row, 'edit', cycle("odd", "even"))}

The helper itself is now much, much easier to read and maintain.  I
expect a real gain in future coding.

The plugin is easy to add, and the views can just be copied into a new
file with a haml extension and then converted to haml (which
predominantly involves removing redundant dross and tidying up the
indentation).  The haml file takes precedence over the rhtml file.  So
it is easy to change the views one by one (leaving the original
intact) without breaking the application.

I also found the radrails plugin which helps with highlighting the
head of the indented block.

So I'm impressed; and it has brightened up my Monday morning.
Thank you to all the guys who have worked on the haml implementation
and also very much on the documentation too!

Tonypm

>  I use HAML. I also have no trouble creating valid XHTML but then I tried
>  HAML. Unfortunately, it is hard to explain why it is awesome. First, it
>  removes the unnecessary cruft from html. It brings html into a much more
>  DRY form. So

I tried HAML and got really frustrated by it.

It's very finicky. It mandates two spaces for indentation and makes no
allowances for people who might prefer more space.
It doesn't work with tabs at all.
I could not find a way to put inline styles or inline javascript
(maybe it's possible but it was not in the docs).
It makes it very difficult to move sections of markup around. If you
want to move a table from one div to the next you have to practically
re-indent your entire page.
If you make an error (and you will) the error message does not tell
you on which line you messed up. You have to examine the entire page
top to bottom to see where you messed up.

I think if haml had a "flow" option like YAML does it would be ideal.
I guess at that point it would be like markaby too.

Too bad markaby is no longer being maintained.

> I could not find a way to put inline styles or inline javascript
> (maybe it's possible but it was not in the docs).

Sure it is possible.

%bla{:style => "some-attribute:some-value;"} Bla

> It makes it very difficult to move sections of markup around. If you
> want to move a table from one div to the next you have to practically
> re-indent your entire page.

I agree with that. It's sorta cool to have to write only as much code as 
is really needed, but it has some implications on basic workflow 
(TextMate gets confused about what I want to do when moving blocks 
around either).

> If you make an error (and you will) the error message does not tell
> you on which line you messed up. You have to examine the entire page
> top to bottom to see where you messed up.

I also agree with that, however, after a few hours you won't make any 
mistakes anymore. It's just a question of practice.

> I think if haml had a "flow" option like YAML does it would be ideal.

Could you explain this point further? I don't know what the flow option 
is.

All in all I really like HAML, but it's not perfect. I also wasn't able 
to figure out how to place inline-code:

%p
  Greetings,
  = link_to(user.name, user_path(user))
  !

This lets the browser display a space between the link and the 
exclamation mark:

  <p>Greetings, <a href='...'>User</a> !</p>

Anyone knows how to avoid this?

Anyway, if you don't like HAML - the other part of the package, SASS, is 
*really* amazing in my opinion! :-) CSS quite the way it was meant to 
be!

>
>  > I think if haml had a "flow" option like YAML does it would be ideal.
>
>  Could you explain this point further? I don't know what the flow option
>  is.


In a yaml file you have the option of "flow" type of an entry or the
indented entry. For example a list in yaml is like this

- item1
- item 2
- item 3


or the flow method

[item1,
               item2,
item3]

if you use the brackets you don't care about the indenting


If Haml had that I would be all over it.

After playing around with HAML for some weeks now, I have to admit that 
I'm not convinced of it anymore. Well, it has cool features, and SASS 
gives us a lot that I'm missing from CSS since years already.

But the longer I'm using it, the longer I get annoyed by the small 
things already written in this thread before. And I don't like looking 
at the code, too, the idea behind using intendation for structure is 
cool, but it also confuses me the longer I'm staring at it.

So I decided to try out Markaby, because it is rather a compromise 
between "normal" XHTML and the cool advances of a "real" templating 
language. If this doesn't work out (which rather won't be the case), 
then I'll go completely back using ERB only.

For SASS, it's quite the same. If it had a more CSS-like syntax like

div {
  color: red;

  .box {
    border: 1px solid green;
  }
}

I'd rather like it, but I came to the conclusion that writing clean CSS 
based upon a good understanding of the structures/elements of your 
design is nearly as good, and it doesn't bring all the hassles.

So I'm happy having played with different templating systems a little, 
so now I'll have a good feeling staying on the old ERB road and don't 
have the feeling I'm missing something I might regret soon. :-)

One last thing: I read on several places that HAML was incredibly fast 
compared to Markaby. Is that true?

Joshua Muheim wrote:

> All in all I really like HAML, but it's not perfect. I also wasn't able 
> to figure out how to place inline-code:
> 
> %p
>   Greetings,
>   = link_to(user.name, user_path(user))
>   !
> 
> This lets the browser display a space between the link and the 
> exclamation mark:
> 
>   <p>Greetings, <a href='...'>User</a> !</p>
> 
> Anyone knows how to avoid this?
> 
> Anyway, if you don't like HAML - the other part of the package, SASS, is 
> *really* amazing in my opinion! :-) CSS quite the way it was meant to 
> be!

Do you mean something like:

%p= "Greetings "+(link_to(current_user.login, 
user_path(current_user)))+"!"

which yields

<p>Greetings <a href="/users/2">arc</a>!</p>

> Do you mean something like:
> 
> %p= "Greetings "+(link_to(current_user.login, 
> user_path(current_user)))+"!"
> 
> which yields
> 
> <p>Greetings <a href="/users/2">arc</a>!</p>

Now do the same for

<p>Greetings, <span class='some_class'>User</span>!</p>

;-)

Tim Uckun wrote:
> I tried HAML and got really frustrated by it.

That's too bad. I'm the main Haml developer, so I thought I'd try to 
address some of the issues (even though this post is a month old... for 
posterity, you know).

> I could not find a way to put inline styles or inline javascript
> (maybe it's possible but it was not in the docs).

You want filters - see the section of 
http://haml.hamptoncatlin.com/docs/rdoc/classes/Haml.html on filters. 
The :plain filter will allow you to embed any sort of plain text in the 
document, although you may prefer the :sass filter for CSS. For example:

  %style{:type => "text/css"}
    :sass
      p
        background-color: green

The same goes for Javascript. In the Haml master branch, there's also a 
:javascript filter that wraps its content in script and CDATA tags.

> It makes it very difficult to move sections of markup around. If you
> want to move a table from one div to the next you have to practically
> re-indent your entire page.

I sympathize, but the same is true for normal XHTML. Unless you're 
willing to leave oddly-indented blocks of markup lying around your 
document, it's just as much of a pain (more, if you can't end tags ;-) 
). Also, a sufficiently smart text editor should be able to do this for 
you.

> If you make an error (and you will) the error message does not tell
> you on which line you messed up. You have to examine the entire page
> top to bottom to see where you messed up.

This is a bug in Haml that I've been working on fixing. I think 
(*crosses fingers*) that it's been squashed in the master branch.

Joshua Muheim wrote:
> One last thing: I read on several places that HAML was incredibly fast 
> compared to Markaby. Is that true?

Yes. Since Markaby's no longer maintained, there hasn't been nearly as 
much optimization work put into it as into Haml. In addition, since it's 
all Ruby code, there's no good way to cache partially-compiled templates 
- this is where both Haml and ERB get most of their speed. In addition, 
Markaby has to dynamically generate and append every bit of HTML, which 
slows it down tremendously even in comparison to uncached ERB (the same 
is true for Haml, but since it's cached it doesn't matter).

> %p
>   Greetings,
>   = link_to(user.name, user_path(user))
>   !

Here's how I'd do it:

  %p== Greetings, #{link_to(user.name, user_path(user))}!

> <p>Greetings, <span class='some_class'>User</span>!</p>

The thing is, Haml isn't built for inline markup. Inline markup is a 
very different beast than structural markup, and what works for 
structure - namely, indentation - doesn't always work for inline. So 
there's nothing wrong in dropping to a more inline-friendly syntax, like 
XHTML:

  %p== Greetings, <span class='some_class'>#{user.name}</span>!

Or even Textile:

  :textile
    %(class: some_class)#{user.name}%

Note the latter version will only work in the master branch, soon to be 
released as Haml 2.0.

> Also, a sufficiently smart text editor should be able to do this for 
> you.

So TextMate isn't sufficiently smart? Anyway, I don't see any way how a 
text editor should be able know where a tag should end, when there's no 
end tag...

> Yes. Since Markaby's no longer maintained, there hasn't been nearly as 
> much optimization work put into it as into Haml.

OK, there we go, good-bye Markaby...

All in all, I guess I will completely switch back to ERB templates. 
They're not very beautiful, but HAML doesn't seem much more beautiful to 
me, and at least with ERB I should never have compatibility problems.

>
>  That's too bad. I'm the main Haml developer, so I thought I'd try to
>  address some of the issues (even though this post is a month old... for
>  posterity, you know).


Thanks. I appreciate it.

>  You want filters - see the section of
>  http://haml.hamptoncatlin.com/docs/rdoc/classes/Haml.html on filters.
>  The :plain filter will allow you to embed any sort of plain text in the
>  document, although you may prefer the :sass filter for CSS. For example:


I'll look at them.


>
The thing is that my smart editors (eclipse, jedit, netbeans etc) know
how to automatically indent HTML and XML. If I move a div from one
section to another I just the magical key combination and voila!


>  > If you make an error (and you will) the error message does not tell
>  > you on which line you messed up. You have to examine the entire page
>  > top to bottom to see where you messed up.
>
>  This is a bug in Haml that I've been working on fixing. I think
>  (*crosses fingers*) that it's been squashed in the master branch.
>

Fantastic.
>
>  Note the latter version will only work in the master branch, soon to be
>  released as Haml 2.0.


How do you comment out a section of code? I tried to use the
commenting as described on the documents but if the commented section
"spoiled" the indentation it didn't work.

Anyway here is a feature request.

I would appreciate some sort of an option to use blocks so I don't
have to use indents. Whether it's do end or {} I don' t care. After
all if I liked significant indents I would be using python :)

Joshua Muheim wrote:

> 
> OK, there we go, good-bye Markaby...
> 

Malline is very similar to Markaby.  I've been working with it the past 
few days and have run into a couple of problems, but the developer is 
very responsive.  www.malline.org and there's a Trac at dev.malline.org.

Peace,
Phillip

Tim Uckun wrote:
> Anyway here is a feature request.
> 
> I would appreciate some sort of an option to use blocks so I don't
> have to use indents. Whether it's do end or {} I don' t care. After
> all if I liked significant indents I would be using python :)

I second that request.  I looked at Haml briefly, but turned away from 
it when I learned that it is indentation dependent.  For whatever 
reason, I have always liked 4 character tabs.  I have tried a few times 
to get away from that, but can't.  Not trying to start any kind of 
debate, though.  Just stating my personal preference.  If Haml supported 
blocks and let me indent how ever I wanted, I'd give it a try straight 
away.

Peace,
Phillip

Phillip Koebbe wrote:
> Joshua Muheim wrote:
> 
>> 
>> OK, there we go, good-bye Markaby...
>> 
> 
> Malline is very similar to Markaby.  I've been working with it the past 
> few days and have run into a couple of problems, but the developer is 
> very responsive.  www.malline.org and there's a Trac at dev.malline.org.
> 
> Peace,
> Phillip

Thanks for the hint, I forgot to check this one out... Seems quite OK, 
but somehow I don't like stuff like

self << _'some output'; << br

(or whatever)... Doesn't seem much more beautiful than normal ERB...

So I guess I'll stick with ERB for a while... ;-)

Joshua Muheim wrote:
> Thanks for the hint, I forgot to check this one out... Seems quite OK, 
> but somehow I don't like stuff like
> 
> self << _'some output'; << br
> 
> (or whatever)... Doesn't seem much more beautiful than normal ERB...
> 
> So I guess I'll stick with ERB for a while... ;-)

I'm by no means an expert on Malline, but I don't think you have to use 
that style all too often.  There are places where helpers generate 
strings (like in Markaby) that you have to handle like that, but for the 
most part it should be as straight forward as

_ 'some output'
br
_ 'some more output'
div.some_class do
  p do
    _ 'Your content here'
  end
end

If you haven't yet, take a look at the comparison of the Beast views 
(http://www.malline.org/beast).  That should give you an indication of 
it's usability.

Peace,
Phillip

> ...for the most part it should be as straight forward as
> 
> _ 'some output'
> br
> _ 'some more output'
> div.some_class do
>   p do
>     _ 'Your content here'
>   end
> end

I still very dislike the underscore for normal strings... ;-)

Joshua Muheim wrote:
> I still very dislike the underscore for normal strings... ;-)

I do, too.  But since it's a function call, it has to be something.  I 
think you can also use txt or txt!. Between the two, I actually prefer 
the underscore.

For me, it's the lesser of all evils.  Just looking at all of that ERb 
code makes my eyes blur.

Peace,
Phillip

Joshua Muheim wrote:
> So TextMate isn't sufficiently smart? Anyway, I don't see any way how a 
> text editor should be able know where a tag should end, when there's no 
> end tag...

I don't know about TextMate, but in the Emacs haml- and sass-modes, you 
can set the region around a block of code and re-indent it.

Phillip Koebbe
> Malline is very similar to Markaby.  I've been working with it the past 
> few days and have run into a couple of problems, but the developer is 
> very responsive.  www.malline.org and there's a Trac at dev.malline.org.

Huh, I wasn't aware of Malline. Looking at the code, though, it seems 
like it would suffer from the same performance issues that Markaby does.

Tim Uckun:
> The thing is that my smart editors (eclipse, jedit, netbeans etc) know
> how to automatically indent HTML and XML. If I move a div from one
> section to another I just the magical key combination and voila!

Sure, but you can do the same thing with Haml (see above).

> Anyway here is a feature request.
> 
> I would appreciate some sort of an option to use blocks so I don't
> have to use indents. Whether it's do end or {} I don' t care. After
> all if I liked significant indents I would be using python :)

Just practically speaking, I don't think this is going to happen any 
time soon. It would require major, difficult overhauls to the entire 
structure of the parser. We'd have to find a syntax that wouldn't be 
ambiguous with Ruby code or filters and would be unlikely to break lots 
of existing code. We'd have to figure out how to implement it without 
trying to parse the Ruby code, without losing line-number information, 
and without making the parser entirely unmaintainable.

And even beyond the technical issues, it runs pretty strongly contrary 
to the Haml philosophy to add in extra verbosity for no gain in power. 
The first draft of Haml was designed by removing everything redundant 
from an XHTML document. This included end tags, because the indentation 
was already there, doing a perfectly good job of showing the structure. 
I honestly can't imagine when your indentation wouldn't match up with 
the structure of your document. I mean, sure, with Haml you can't do

  <div>
    <p>foo</p>
  <p>bar</p>
      <p>baz</p>
  </div>

but why would you ever want to?

>> The thing is that my smart editors (eclipse, jedit, netbeans etc)  
>> know
>> how to automatically indent HTML and XML. If I move a div from one
>> section to another I just the magical key combination and voila!

I've been using Haml and TextMate since Hampton sent his first email
about Haml. Works like a charm. I'm not too allergic to pressing the
backspace key. Haml auto-closes tags, so the "magic" autocompleting is
less of an issue.

Granted, almost all the Rails snippets are predicated on your using
erb or rhtml. If that's a priority, then Haml might not be for you. If
clear code that mirrors the DOM is a priority, then take a second
look. Magic keys are often created to auto-type noise characters that
Haml doesn't require.

Just my $.02

Nathan Weizenbaum wrote:
> 
> Huh, I wasn't aware of Malline. Looking at the code, though, it seems 
> like it would suffer from the same performance issues that Markaby does.
> 

It probably does.  It's another one of those balancing acts that 
developers have to make.  I choose ease of development for the price of 
a performance hit.  Other's don't. Of course, one person's ease is 
another person's pain.

> 
> Just practically speaking, I don't think this is going to happen any 
> time soon. It would require major, difficult overhauls to the entire 

That's understandable.

> I honestly can't imagine when your indentation wouldn't match up with 
> the structure of your document. I mean, sure, with Haml you can't do

For me, it's not that I don't have structured indentation, it's that I 
don't like to use 2 spaces.  I have never liked space indentation (and 
probably never will).  I prefer to use a 4 character tab.  My code is 
generally _very_ well structured in terms of indentation, but with tabs. 
If Haml would support tabs, that's all I'd need.

Peace,
Phillip

Phillip Koebbe wrote:
> It probably does.  It's another one of those balancing acts that 
> developers have to make.  I choose ease of development for the price of 
> a performance hit.  Other's don't. Of course, one person's ease is 
> another person's pain.

I certainly understand that tradeoff. All the early adopters of Haml had 
to deal with it, until we started supporting precompilation.

> For me, it's not that I don't have structured indentation, it's that I 
> don't like to use 2 spaces.  I have never liked space indentation (and 
> probably never will).  I prefer to use a 4 character tab.  My code is 
> generally _very_ well structured in terms of indentation, but with tabs. 
> If Haml would support tabs, that's all I'd need.

Haml will begin to be more lenient with respect to what sorts of 
indentation are allowed after version 2.0.

Nathan Weizenbaum wrote:
> I don't know about TextMate, but in the Emacs haml- and sass-modes, you 
> can set the region around a block of code and re-indent it.

in TextMate, hold down the option key to make multi-line edits.  a HAML 
example would be adding one level of indent to a region of code.  hold 
down the option key with your cursor immediately to the left of the 
first character in the region you want to indent.  and select down to 
the last line of the region.  than you can press tab to insert spaces in 
front of each line.

Dave Vanderkloot wrote:
> Nathan Weizenbaum wrote:
>> I don't know about TextMate, but in the Emacs haml- and sass-modes, you 
>> can set the region around a block of code and re-indent it.
> 
> in TextMate, hold down the option key to make multi-line edits.  a HAML 
> example would be adding one level of indent to a region of code.  hold 
> down the option key with your cursor immediately to the left of the 
> first character in the region you want to indent.  and select down to 
> the last line of the region.  than you can press tab to insert spaces in 
> front of each line.

Or just select all needed lines and press Cmd-Alt-6 (or 5) to indent 
your stuff... :-)

Joshua Muheim wrote:
> Dave Vanderkloot wrote:
>> Nathan Weizenbaum wrote:
>>> I don't know about TextMate, but in the Emacs haml- and sass-modes, you 
>>> can set the region around a block of code and re-indent it.
>> 
>> in TextMate, hold down the option key to make multi-line edits.  a HAML 
>> example would be adding one level of indent to a region of code.  hold 
>> down the option key with your cursor immediately to the left of the 
>> first character in the region you want to indent.  and select down to 
>> the last line of the region.  than you can press tab to insert spaces in 
>> front of each line.
> 
> Or just select all needed lines and press Cmd-Alt-6 (or 5) to indent 
> your stuff... :-)

hmm - that isn't working for me - is that standard TextMate behavior or 
part of a bundle?

Dave Vanderkloot wrote:
> hmm - that isn't working for me - is that standard TextMate behavior or 
> part of a bundle?

Should be standard. And you also can intent using alt-tab or 
alt-shift-tab. Anyway, I'd find it more natural if one could only press 
the tab button.

Joshua Muheim wrote:
> Dave Vanderkloot wrote:
>> hmm - that isn't working for me - is that standard TextMate behavior or 
>> part of a bundle?
> 
> Should be standard. And you also can intent using alt-tab or 
> alt-shift-tab. Anyway, I'd find it more natural if one could only press 
> the tab button.

thanks - the alt-tab combo is much better than what i was doing!

>> Should be standard. And you also can intent using alt-tab or 
>> alt-shift-tab. Anyway, I'd find it more natural if one could only press 
>> the tab button.
> 
> thanks - the alt-tab combo is much better than what i was doing!

Thanks from me, too! All this time using TextMate and I've been doing 
CMD-] and CMD-[.

*sigh*

Peace,
Phillip

> Thanks from me, too! All this time using TextMate and I've been doing 
> CMD-] and CMD-[.

Oh, THAT was the problem! On my swiss german keyboard alt-5 and alt-6 
result in [ and ], so sorry for that, Dave. ;-)

For some reason I got used to use Cmd-[ and Cmd-] and don't really use 
Alt-Tab...

Anyway, I suggest you all read "TextMate - Power Editing for the Mac" by 
James Edward Gray, there's a lot of great information about how to 
improve your daily usage of TextMate. :-)

http://www.pragprog.com/titles/textmate/textmate