LC Server style survey: co-mingle code w/HTML?

[Alex Tweedly]

On 08/12/2017 17:28, Mark Waddingham via use-livecode wrote:

> On 2017-12-07 19:52, Richard Gaskin via use-livecode wrote:
>> Would it be possible/practical to extend the merge function to at
>> least allow things like control structures with non-LC stuff in
>> between them?
> A LC Server script is an alternating sequence of code and text blocks. 
> Once you have that alternating sequence, you could replace the text 
> blocks with a call to a handler with a parameter which is a custom 
> prop of the stack containing the text content.
Would it not be easier to transform the text blocks in to a (series of) 
"put" statement(s) ?
Being "put"ted  is exactly what is going to happen to the text in the 
non-code blocks, so why not just do that.

Also, that means that the LC Server script can be turned into a 
script-only stack - which would feel more natural to me. And,  it would 
continue to be visible in-line, therefore retaining (more or less) the 
same self-documenting characteristic as the original script.

It's much more legible (to me) to replace

    <?lc if a = b then ?>
       <p>Some data that happens to be HTML</p>
    <?lc else ?>
       <p>Some other data that happens to be HTML</p>
    <?lc end if ?>

with

     if a = b then
      put "      <p>Some data that happens to be HTML</p> " & CR
    else
      put "      <p>Some other data that happens to be HTML</p> & CR
    end if

rather than

   if a = b then
      someHandler myPropertyName1
    else
      someHandler myPropertyName2
    end if

OK, OK, you need to handle quotes within the HTML - but it should be 
easy enough.

-- Alex.