When I first had to choose a templating scheme for our company, I investigated several options. HTML::Template and Template Toolkit were the two most likely candidates. Even though HTML::Template could have satisfied our needs at the time, I was concerned that, with some of the projects we were planning, that it might become a bottleneck. On the other hand, if we took the trouble to learn Template Toolkit up front, we would have a vastly more powerful templating system available, albeit with potential that we were not tapping.

flash forward almost two years

Many people use templates by creating a program, assembling the data, then calling the template and passing it the data. For my current project, I need to create documents out of multiple templates all tied together, some with dynamic content from a variety of different sources. As a result, I am inverting the process and having templates call programs (plugins). This allows me a much richer templating environment. I don't think I could have done that very easily with HTML::Template.

If your documents are not likely to be terribly complicated, HTML::Template is a fine tool.

Cheers,
Ovid

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