Remember yesterday when I was talking about how I get to work with incredibly talented individuals? Well, another one of those fine folks is Hampton Catlin, inventor of Haml and giver of swearword-riddled presentations. Haml now has its own website, dedicated entirely to, well, Haml.
It features, documentation, tutorials, download instructions, and links to the google-group. Check it out:
I’m typing this from an internet cafe in London right now. One pound for one hour’s worth of internet access is a great deal.
So, I was holding off on writing about HAML until it was officially unveiled at RailsConf Europe where it’s creator and I were graciously flown by our employer, Unspace Interactive. Now that the conference is over, it’s time to spread the word.
HAML is a new templating engine for Rails that enables you to write truly beautiful templates. Created by one of my esteemed collegues, Hampton Catlin, I’m proud to say that I played a minor role in its evolution: I refactored the codebase, added some tests, and wrote the rdoc. The real credit goes to Hampton, of course. I’m merely a supplicant and a votary. But I’m the only HAML commiter besides Hampton, which makes me better than you.
Let’s take a breif look at HAML in action:
%html
%head
%title HAML Demo
%body
#container
.content
%p Stop. HAML time
That’s it. No annoying tags to close, no need to specify the tag name when all we want is a div, and best of all, the # and . characters mimic those of CSS. Here’s the output:
<html>
<head>
<title>HAML Demo</title>
</head>
<body>
<div id='container'>
<div class='content'>
<p>Stop. HAML time</p>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
Now that your mind has been completely blown, you should download HAML and try it for yourself.
HAML is available as a Rails plugin. To install it, type the following from the root of your Rails project:
./script/plugin install svn://hamptoncatlin.com/haml/trunk
Once installed, you can start creating templates with the .haml extension.
PS: I have yet to mention Unspace on this blog. Thankfully, I work there now. With Hampton, Pete, Ryan, Anthony, and John. More about that soon, swear to god.
Author of Beginning Rails and creator of the ever-popular Scribbish theme, Jeffrey Allan Hardy works at 37signals. He lives somewhere in the deep Canadian wilderness with his wife, his dog, and a cat.
