Sounds very similar to component caching in HTML::Mason.

Update:

From http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2001/08/21/templating.html?page=3:

Mason has been around for a few years, and has built a loyal following. It was originally created as a Perl clone of some of the most interesting features from Vignette StoryServer, but has since become its own unique animal.

So such similarity is not really surprising.

--
Ilya Martynov (http://martynov.org/)