Anyone use HAML out in the wild?
What do people think?
Worth the effort?
Or is HTML sprinkled with RHTML the thing to stick to and do right?
Hi Luzzy
I did download it but have not found time to check it out.
As per the README :-
Haml and Sass are templating engines for the two most common types of documents on the web: HTML and CSS, respectively.
They are designed to make it both easier and more pleasant to code HTML and CSS documents, by eliminating redundancy, reflecting the underlying structure that the document represents, and providing elegant, easily understandable, and powerful syntax.
I love Haml; I have used it in my last five projects and it definitely speeds me up, results in fewer typos, and generally is a joy to work with. It takes a little getting used to, but once you've got it you will move much faster in coding views.
At least half the value of Haml is Sass. Even if you don't want to use Haml, Sass provides a much more sensible way to create and maintain stylesheets (such as use of constants, automatically nesting selectors for you, etc.)
-Mike
We just started using HAML and LOVE IT. We put it off for a while because of its speeed, but now with the latest update made huge improvement in speed. Now it is on par with Erb and they say there is much room for improvement. The productivity gain is more than worth it, the code is clean an beautiful. You do have to get used to the syntax but shortly it all comes together.
We haven't gone full speed ahead with Sass yet but we will soon.
HAML is absolutely beautiful. The only reason *not* to use it is if it doesn't fit in with your team's workflow (e.g. if they use visual design tools or other processing tools, or if there are just too many people who'd have to learn it).
If you are your team, go for it - you'll love it.
There have been a lot of responses from people who love HAML, so I thought I'd put in my dissenting opinion. I have two major problems with it, though one is a pet peeve.
First, I have a problem with semantically meaningful whitespace. Yes, it's a pet peeve, but that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't a valid issue. I consider it a readability issue, for the most part, since while I can see the presence or absence of whitespace, or a close brace, or an end very easily, I can't easily judge the width of an indent. Yes, I know that relative indent is what it's all about but even that is an issue when outdenting (i.e. when I am ending an indented block, how many levels of nesting am I ending?). I also think it limits the ability of an editor to help navigate a file. This is the primary reason I have never bothered with Python.
The second and more objective problem is that it involves thinking in yet another language. If you are doing web development, you should already know and be comfortable with HTML and CSS. Additional Ruby markup, even with the Rails DSLs, isn't an increase in cognitive load since the rest of the system is already in Ruby/Rails. HAML and Sass, however, require thinking in an additional language that includes meaningful whitespace (unlike every other language one might know, particularly Ruby, HTML, and CSS, except Python). There's nothing wrong with learning to think in another language, but switching tracks within the same project should be minimized.
There is something to be said for generating complex CSS from a more concise representation, but even that can and should be accomplished using the existing tools, i.e. ERB. I had occasion to generate some CSS, and used the Rails generator system, which relies on ERB. Incidentally, if you have truly dynamic CSS files, you have a system design problem rather than a need for a library/language to simplify implementing it.
--Greg
I have converted all my Rails sites to Haml. It saves me a ton of
time and Sass is much clearer for me to read/write than is CSS. It
will take you some getting used to if you are used to sprinkling
*ruby* into your rhtml because that is best hoisted out into helpers
in Haml. But Hamlites will tell you that makes your code easier to
reuse, test, and read. I agree.
Luzzy wrote:
Anyone use HAML out in the wild?
What do people think?
Worth the effort?
Or is HTML sprinkled with RHTML the thing to stick to and do right?
+10 for pure haml... clear, concise, and I'm used to reading the 2 space indent from my Rails/Ruby code anyway.
Why the question about rhtml mixed in? - I haven't found the need to revert any part of any form back to rhtml yet...
Are there any simple tutorials to get started with HAML? Thanks. Bharat
Bharat Ruparel wrote:
Are there any simple tutorials to get started with HAML? Thanks. Bharat
This link
http://haml.hamptoncatlin.com/docs/rdoc/classes/Haml.html
will drop you onto the docs, and it really is simple conceptually, it's just a syntax change from rhtml.
There is also a tutorial at