The term "theme", loaded, evil.

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tonyn's picture

Theme is a loaded word.

Drupal's theme system is a template system.

It even uses .tpl files.

It doesn't theme anything.

That is all.

Comments

Enlighten us, then; what is

Garrett Albright's picture

Enlighten us, then; what is a theme system, and why isn't Drupal's template system one?

I (and most others, I presume) just assumed it was a tuhmayta tuhmahta thing.

It's not so much a matter of

tonyn's picture

It's not so much a matter of drupal's template system not being a theme system, but rather use of an already loaded, imprecise word to describe inner components and individual drupal site layouts.

The jargon is confusing and needs to be clarified in some way. For instance, drupal can user /layouts instead of /themes, while still keeping the core terminology of theme settings.

Among "templates," "themes"

Garrett Albright's picture

Among "templates," "themes" and "layouts," I definitely prefer "templates." However, I'm still failing to see why "themes" is loaded and imprecise, as you say. I guess you could say it's imprecise in that it can have several other meanings apart from defining the look and structure of something, but at least as far as computers go, it's caught on as a fairly common word to describe that.

Drupal Issue regarding theming terminology

tonyn's picture

My mistake. I outlined some my points in #351522 Core Terminology: Change theme to 'layout' or 'template'.

interesting. i always

mike stewart's picture

interesting. i always explain theming to clients using templates as a metaphor, but never really thought about it. i'd agree that templates are more accurate, or at least better understood, description.

--
mike stewart { twitter: @MediaDoneRight | IRC nick: mike stewart }

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