when you're writing HAML, you're programming more and marking up less . . .If you like programming and you don't like writing markup, then the advantage is you have more fun.
I second that. I used Sinatra and HAML when I wrote Feedstomper.com and the whole thing just felt lighter and more fun than some Rails apps I've written (when I was also using erb).
Granted, the whole concept was lighter than those apps, but still -- I like HAML.
I read your comment, and was a bit taken aback.. "isn't that what :javascript is for?"
Reading through the comments, though, :javascript was developed specifically in response to that post - it wraps everything indented in script tags, and does the right thing with special characters/etc.
No problem. I don't think I caught it until I went through the Haml docs a second or third time - lots of handy little tidbits floating around in there I missed the first time.
I second that. I used Sinatra and HAML when I wrote Feedstomper.com and the whole thing just felt lighter and more fun than some Rails apps I've written (when I was also using erb).
Granted, the whole concept was lighter than those apps, but still -- I like HAML.
One issue: sometimes you can stumble over javascript: http://b.lesseverything.com/2008/2/19/haml-doesn-t-like-java...
Oh, and if you're interested in Sinatra (and why not, while we're waiting on Mrailerbs), you can learn it from just this page:
http://github.com/bmizerany/sinatra/tree/master