What is the best template system? Ask five people and you'll probably get six different answers. Perl has more than its fair share of template tools, from the Swiss Army Chainsaw of Template Toolkit, through HTML::Mason and Text::Template down to the ever-tempting "variables interpolated in a here-doc" method.
As always with this type of question, there is no "correct" answer. The best template system is the one that works best for you, in your circumstances. If you are the only programmer in a room full of professional designers, your optimal template choice is likely to be different than if you are just trying to stick a loop into a text file for your own cron job.
In my experience, the key factors in choosing a template system are usually the composition of your development team, and the development workflow. Who has to work with the templates, and what are their skill sets? Is the code being designed around the interface, or is the interface being pasted on top of the code?
Read on for a comparison of the major template systems in Perl, and my recommendations of which systems fit which circumstances.
