Haml

Haml (HTML Abstraction Markup Language) is a templating system to avoid writing the inline code in a web document and make HTML easy and clean. Haml gives the flexibility to have some dynamic content in HTML. Similar to other web languages like PHP, ASP, JSP and template systems like eRuby, Haml also embeds some code that gets executed during runtime and generates HTML code in order to provide some dynamic content. In order to run Haml code, files need to have .haml extension. These files are similar to .erb or eRuby files which also help to embed Ruby code while developing a web application. While parsing coding comments Haml uses the same rules as Ruby 1.9 or later. Haml understands only ASCII compatible encodings like UTF-8 but does not understand UTF-16 or UTF-32, since these are not compatible with ASCII. Haml can be used in command line, as a separate Ruby module or can be used in a Ruby on Rails application making Haml suitable for a wide range of applications.

History

Haml was originally introduced by Hampton Catlin with its initial release in 2006 and the work was taken ahead by a few other people. His motive was to make HTML simpler, cleaner and easier to use. Since 2006, it has been revised several times and newer versions were released. In April 2012, the maintenance of Haml was taken up by Norman Clarke.Natalie Weizenbaum and Nick Walsh were the few others who helped in developing Haml and making it what it is now. Natalie Weizenbaum worked on making Haml usable in Ruby applications, while the branding and design was done by Nick Walsh. Others who are currently in the maintenance team are Matt Wildig, Akira Matsuda and Tee Parham.