I now work in a heavily XML-oriented workplace. The latest idea floated around my little world is to have perl write XML (holding your data structures), then use XSLT to transform that into HTML.

(Just completing the thought: your XSLT translation can now exist completely separately from the code, allowing a "web" developer to just deal with the output data, without needing to understand the intricacies of perl - at least that's how it was presented to me)

• Avoids useless (expensive?) templating
• separates data from presentation

Not sure I'm sold on this, BTW, but it has its merits.

The downfalls:

• Developers must now use (and be somewhat familiar with) XML and its tools
• "Web" developers have to be familiar with XSL as well as HTML presentation
• If one person wears both hats (perl coder and web developer), you now have three "technologies" to understand all-at-once

Russ
Brainbench 'Most Valuable Professional' for Perl