They actually do neither ... they are templating modules and have no responsibility of producing valid HTML - that's up to the HTML coder. As for being overkill, well ... the more you use these tools, the quicker you get at coding with them. You can see an example that i am proud of over at 4Re: How do I extract text from an HTML page? that uses HTML::Template. The template is stored inside DATA - creating a new H::T object that uses the DATA filehandle is a snap: 
my $template = HTML::Template->new(filehandle => \*DATA);

[download]
For the Template-Toolkit quick and simple scripts, check out Inline::TT, it's slow as hell, but when you combine it with Class::DBI you get some amazing results. I am nearly finished with my C::D mini-tut that will demonstrate using C::D with multiple tables, but here is a snippet just to show you the power of the Class::DBI and Template combo. (and by the way, i learned most of this from How to Avoid Writing Code and the poop-group mailing list) 
use strict;
use warnings;
use DVD::movie;
use Inline 'TT';

print DVD(movies => [DVD::movie->retrieve_all]);

__DATA__
__TT__
[% BLOCK DVD %]
   [% FOREACH movie = movies %]
   <img src="http://dvd.unlocalhost.com/images/[% movie.id %].jpg" ali
+gn="right" />
   <h2>[% movie.title %]</h2>
   <ul>
      <li> Year - [% movie.year %]</li>
      <li>Added - [% movie.timestamp %]</li>
      <li>Directors:</li>
      <ul>
      [% FOREACH director = movie.directors %]
         <li>[% director.name %]</li>
      [% END %]
      </ul>
      <li>Writers:</li>
      <ul>
      [% FOREACH writer = movie.writers %]
         <li>[% writer.name %]</li>
      [% END %]
      </ul>
      <li>Genres:</li>
      <ul>
      [% FOREACH genre = movie.genres %]
         <li>[% genre.name %]</li>
      [% END %]
      </ul>
   </ul>
   <br clear="right" />
   [% END %]
[% END %]

[download]
That's just too easy. ;)

jeffa

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)

In reply to 3Re: HTML::Tree(Builder) in 6 minutes by jeffa
in thread HTML::Tree(Builder) in 6 minutes by trs80

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