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Smarty is dead? alternative engine to migrate to #553

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ghost opened this issue Oct 5, 2019 · 35 comments
Closed

Smarty is dead? alternative engine to migrate to #553

ghost opened this issue Oct 5, 2019 · 35 comments

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@ghost
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ghost commented Oct 5, 2019

I see that Smarty hasn't had any updates in 2019, is it dead?

If yes, then maybe someone could post an alternative php templating engine, so we can start migrating.

Thank you.

@worldtok
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worldtok commented Oct 5, 2019

Try laravel blade

@matks
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matks commented Oct 7, 2019

If yes, then maybe someone could post an alternative php templating engine, so we can start migrating.

https://twig.symfony.com/ is very nice and is being done by the same devs behind https://symfony.com/

@nxtpl
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nxtpl commented Oct 18, 2019

It's so sad when the author drops development of something that is still very popular and so advanced. I have few Smarty books on my shelf and I have used Smarty in hundreds of web applications.

I usually avoid projects that haven't been in development since a long time, other potential users might see it the same way.

It only shows that the developer can't handle his own creation, and even worse, keeps it for himself instead of passing the project for some other people to maintain it properly :(

@matks
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matks commented Oct 18, 2019

It only shows that the developer can't handle his own creation, and even worse, keeps it for himself instead of passing the project for some other people to maintain it properly :(

So, I have no connection to Smarty creator, Monte Ohrt, but I think your words are every harsh and very wrong.

Remember that all of this (smarty, the project, the website, the docs) is done for free by Monte and the wonderful other people who contribute(d) to Smarty such as @uwetews. For free. These people have been taking care of the templating engine you seem to love so much for no money at all, basically giving you and thousand of others their time. To my knowledge, no company is involved into Smarty development so they got no money at all from this project. It seems to be a few sponsors but they are not paying contributors to work on this.

So it's actually a miracle these people could work on this project for so long for free while taking care of their family and working (because they need to eat) their job. We should give them thousand thanks for the amazing work they did. Instead of saying "this is so sad, smarty is dead now" we should say "we are thankful for benefiting for this great tool for free and for so long, thanks to the time given by these wonderful people" and give these people hugs.

By the way, this miracle has a name. It's called the opensource miracle and it happens everyday. There are hundred of critical tools and libraries that only live thanks to the time given by their maintainers, most of the time nobody acknowledges it.

You can read the wonderful article https://onezero.medium.com/the-internet-relies-on-people-working-for-free-a79104a68bcc about this system.

So please dont say bad things about the authors of Smarty. As a long-term user of the library, you cant say that. You should be grateful instead.
And if you think it's too bad the project is dying, please tell me what have you done to prevent it from dying ? Did you contribute ? Did you proofread the docs ? Did you donate to the project ? If you did nothing of these things, then you have a responsibility in this project fading away.

Also if you want the project to continue living, then ... just fork it. That is one of strengths of opensource: a project only dies when nobody is willing to maintain it. Click on this "fork" button at the top right of this page, and you can start maintaing this project with your own time and energy instead of the time and energy of the wonderful people who worked on Smarty.

@nxtpl
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nxtpl commented Oct 18, 2019

Okay, I didn't want it to sound as bad as it did. I'm sorry for that.

I am really full of respect to the authors and thankful to all the other people involved into Smarty development. The project is great - simple and advanced at the same time, and works as it should. But even a good code needs to be maintained, as the times change (and when new PHP releases come out). It needs to be continued!

It's not good when people start searching for a new project, only because the current one seems to be forgotten. I don't believe that fresh templating engines could challenge Smarty (yet).

Yes, I know what open-source is. I didn't propose my own pull requests as I don't miss any functionalities so far. But seeing some of them not pulled in for months is also not encouraging for potential developers.

It would be good to have some updated roadmap, to show people what needs to be done. The forum posts are not good for this, it should be clearly visible.

I would love to contribute to Smarty if there is a spark of hope to make it running again. Donation of few bucks won't change much, I'd like to really help it. Maybe I can work on the main website to update it in terms of looks and become mobile-friendly? On modern monitors it's too thin, on mobile devices it's hard to use.
I could also proofread the docs, but they seem okay at the first sight.

@matks
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matks commented Oct 18, 2019

Okay, I didn't want it to sound as bad as it did. I'm sorry for that.

Thanks 😄

Well, the answer should now come from the Smarty founders and maintainers, but I'm afraid they are quite gone :/ .

@ghost
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ghost commented Oct 18, 2019

A few points I'd like to raise:

  1. I tried to contribute, but I met some horrible attitude in the Smarty forums. That put me in the defensive and in no mood to contribute.

  2. The Smarty website and forum, look like they have been hacked. Full of "hacky" and doggy adverts. It gives the wrong idea to potential future users, corporate users immediately prefer something more professional looking.

  3. Overall, there is little information from the developers. Maybe the project is dead, or maybe not, but nobody has bothered to inform the public about it.

  4. Based on the current situation, I'll keep using Smarty in existing projects but all my new projects will use Twig instead of Smarty.

Just my experience and thoughts.

@nxtpl
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nxtpl commented Oct 18, 2019

@robo2bobo - exactly, these are the things to be resolved 👍 And I could handle the website and informational part.
Hopefully the maintaners notice this feed someday and involve into our discussion.

@criocere
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I like this tools and I am not the only one, I use it in all my projects and I can not believe that it is dead without information. I can understand that the authors have now some others things to do but that would be great to have informations.

I had a quick look on forks (521). Have you identified some serious?

@ophian
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ophian commented Oct 20, 2019

Be patient, or fork.
We are talking about one single developer, see https://github.com/smarty-php/smarty/graphs/contributors.
We all are worried, but all we know and from Uwe Tews himself is in: #353
The rest are rumors. So either wait, fork or leave to another Engine with more developers.

@uwetews
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uwetews commented Oct 21, 2019

Dear Smarty user
Please be informed that a couple month ago I got some serious health problems (stroke) and I immediately was unable to do anything.
It took me very long time to recover.
Finally I will be able to start working again on the Smarty project some time this week.

@ophian
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ophian commented Oct 21, 2019

Hi Uwe
Presumably speaking for others too, I am really glad to hear that you have made it through this hard time of yours and am happy that you are going to continue your work on Smarty! Its just software, but a good one! :) Wish you all health!

@nxtpl
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nxtpl commented Oct 21, 2019

Hello @uwetews, great to see you again! :) We all hope you'll get well!
If I can help you modernize the Smarty website, just let me know - anytime :)

@criocere
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Hi Uwe, thanks for giving us some news. Health first and hoping you will get better.

@simplexx
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Hello @uwetews , glad to hear that you are still working on Smarty! I really love it and we use it for a huge project. I suspected that something bad happened, because it was a long period with no activity. I hope you will get better soon! Thanks for your work.

@worldtok
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Hi @uwetews I wish you all but good health and strength to actualize all the good things you have in mind.
Get well soon.
We are happy to hear from you.

@juangacovas
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juangacovas commented Nov 4, 2019

Hi Uwe, glad to hear you're fine. IMO the project github readme could benefit from showing some "PHP 7.3 & 7.4 compliant" badge. I see php7.4 snapshot on travis file and I personally tested a lot of projects of my team that are using latest Smarty dev version and PHP 7.4 (with success), which I think is a thing for a lot of people, regardless of "code not touched" in some time. Just my two cents.

@criocere
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criocere commented Nov 4, 2019

Hi, I confirm that everything is ok with php 7.3 with all my websites based on smarty.

@gregzawadzki
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About "twig". A great reading https://umumble.com/blogs/php/smarty-vs-twig%3A-performance/
TWIG is slower in some cases more than 50 times slower as article above states (Just as symfony is a slugish as hell). Unless you implement any kind of caching mechanizm of your own I wouldn't switch to twig.

@matks
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matks commented Nov 16, 2019

About "twig". A great reading https://umumble.com/blogs/php/smarty-vs-twig%3A-performance/
TWIG is slower in some cases more than 50 times slower as article above states (Just as symfony is a slugish as hell). Unless you implement any kind of caching mechanizm of your own I wouldn't switch to twig.

Let's be careful about this post as it was written in 2011 😅

Twig 3 just got released and has gone a long way for performance improvements (and for Symfony being sluggish, same story: please check latest benchmarks for SF 4 and 5 you'd be surprised). This benchmark is about Twig 1 which is old now.

@MackSix
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MackSix commented Nov 17, 2019

Hi, I confirm that everything is ok with php 7.3 with all my websites based on smarty.

I concur. I have some $59 social media script that uses the latest smarty and it is running fine on PHP 7.3.11. :)

@matks
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matks commented Nov 17, 2019

Won't lie that my statement is mostly based on what Symfony did to Prestashop 1.7. On 2 of my windows XAMPP Machine Symfony boostrap loads 30-40 seconds. It makes it unworkable for me (might be Windows and Prestashop implementation of Symfony problem - dunno). Still, I'm sworn enemy of symfony for now :)

I guess you're telling me this because you noticed I'm working on PrestaShop 😉well I promise you that Twig is fast, Symfony is fast and PrestaShop 1.7 is fast too 😄

However discussing further PrestaShop topic on this issue is maybe irrelevant as this is Smarty's repository, so I'll be happy to help understand where this crazy 30-40 seconds bootstrap comes from if you come chat about it on our gitter channel https://gitter.im/PrestaShop/General to allow us to find out what is wrong through discussion.

Obviously 30-40 seconds bootstrap is unworkable and nobody would use PrestaShop 1.7 if it was true for everybody, so it's very likely something is wrong on your instance (bad install ? corrupted files ? exotic apache/mysql/php config ?).
By discussing we should be able to pinpoint the error and 1) improve PrestaShop codebase 2) maybe convince you to have a deeper look at PS 1.7 and Symfony (and maybe even 3) create peace between you and Symfony 😄).

@zigmoo
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zigmoo commented Nov 19, 2019

Dear Smarty user
Please be informed that a couple month ago I got some serious health problems (stroke) and I immediately was unable to do anything.
It took me very long time to recover.
Finally I will be able to start working again on the Smarty project some time this week.

Hello Uwe,

I'm so glad to hear of your recovery... and I want to say Thanks! for all the great years of Smarty you've given us!

Would you consider putting up a "Go Fund Me" page or something similar so that we can support your efforts in working on Smarty?

Best regards,

Jason Ziegler

@matks
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matks commented Nov 19, 2019

There's even the new Github Support feature now: https://github.com/sponsors (basically it's a gofundme integrated into github).

I think it would make sense for Smarty, which is used by hundred (thousand ?) of projects/products/companies to receive some funds from them. PHPUnit and XDebug are already using it.

@gregzawadzki
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Sorry to hear that! Wish author fast recovery and lots of health!

@ghost
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ghost commented Dec 6, 2019

@uwetews I wish you a speedy recovery!

Unfortunately, the above discussion started back in early October and its December and we see no updates to Smarty.

Maybe it would be ideal to open the project to more developers? if we depend on a one-man project we are going to end up with similar problems in the future. Food for thought :)

@netsetter
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Hi, I confirm that everything is ok with php 7.3 with all my websites based on smarty.

I concur. I have some $59 social media script that uses the latest smarty and it is running fine on PHP 7.3.11. :)

@MackSix Could you please tell me more about this script? Name of it?
@uwetews Best wishes to you!

@MackSix
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MackSix commented Jan 5, 2020

@netsetter

Hi, I confirm that everything is ok with php 7.3 with all my websites based on smarty.

I concur. I have some $59 social media script that uses the latest smarty and it is running fine on PHP 7.3.11. :)

@MackSix Could you please tell me more about this script? Name of it?
@uwetews Best wishes to you!

@netsetter The script is Sngine that can be found on CodeCanyon.net

@netsetter
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@MackSix Thanks mate for your fast response! Is your social network already live and usable, so I can have a look? I know already about Sngine, since it was the only script I've found that is build on PHP7 and Smarty3, just wanted to be sure you mean that.

@MackSix
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MackSix commented Jan 5, 2020

@netsetter

@MackSix Thanks mate for your fast response! Is your social network already live and usable, so I can have a look? I know already about Sngine, since it was the only script I've found that is build on PHP7 and Smarty3, just wanted to be sure you mean that.

I customized it and added a knitting project type for a client here: social.freedomknits.com

@uwetews
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uwetews commented Jan 7, 2020 via email

@MackSix
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MackSix commented Jan 7, 2020

Get well soon. Thanks for a great template engine.

Unexpected i Had to Go into Hospital for 2 Week now Will start working on smarty Afterwards MackSix [email protected] schrieb am So., 5. Jan. 2020, 19:49:

@MackSix https://github.com/MackSix Thanks mate for your fast response! Is your social network already live and usable, so I can have a look? I know already about Sngine, since it was the only script I've found that is build on PHP7 and Smarty3, just wanted to be sure you mean that. I customized it and added a knitting project type for a client here: social.freedomknits.com — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#553?email_source=notifications&email_token=AAJQHL5FDDD4VVCOTVML4NLQ4ITU3A5CNFSM4I5XBZYKYY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFVREXG43VMVBW63LNMVXHJKTDN5WW2ZLOORPWSZGOEID46CA#issuecomment-570937096>, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAJQHL2XOAFUSACZMQ5ABN3Q4ITU3ANCNFSM4I5XBZYA .

@mohrt
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mohrt commented Jan 26, 2020

Smarty is not dead :) I am one of the original developers of Smarty at its inception circa 1999. Version 3 could not have been made possible without the help of @uwetews and many, many contributors here. My life has been a whirlwind for some years now and I haven't had a lot of time to devote to Smarty any more. That said, I do maintain the hosting of the website and plan to do so into the foreseeable future. As @uwetews stated he has been dealing with health issues as of late and unable to tend to Smarty. I have added @wisskid to the github repositories so he can help keep pull requests and development up to speed. I thank him for his support! And thanks to all you Smarty users, it's been a great project!

@ghost
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ghost commented Feb 12, 2020

Smarty apparently is not dead (just slightly in recovery...) so closing this issue.

@ghost ghost closed this as completed Feb 12, 2020
@marclaporte
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Congrats and thanks to @wisskid and @Visualq as Smarty is almost ready for PHP 8.4 way before the official release date: #1043

And a special thought and thanks to @uwetews for all the great work in the past.

And thank you to @mohrt for starting all this!

This issue was closed.
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