Is there no simple way to do this w/o invoking a module?

Sure there is! 

$sentence = q("The next color is $color.");

$color = q(blue);

print eval $sentence;

[download]
You can learn how to be lazy later :-)

Note: There can be security implications if $color is supplied by user input.

In reply to Re^3: updating a variable call in a hash table by gnosti
in thread updating a variable call in a hash table by coopermc

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