in reply to The hidden charm of Template::Toolkit (and templates generally)
Yes, your function is somewhat readable. Very much so. The problem is, it doesn't scale. For any HTML entity, any visual reference, it can affect another entity or reference. If I want to apply css, js and what not, I don't have a single document that contains everything in a single view. What's worse is, to find any particular piece, I have to go backwards and figure out what calls what. In a template, things are intended to be more flat - like a program w/ no user defined functions. Everything reads top down, loops get hit, variables get assigned an life goes on.
The intended target is also valuable. I can hand a template to a designer and state, "This is the syntax, be it simple like Html Tmplate, or Mason, tweak it so it's a horizontal scrolling page instead of vertical." Less things to break. The separation is nice because it is a controlled separation. Sure you can get around it, but it's fairly obvious when it gets complex. The reverse is true too. I can take an HTML file, and replace a mockup of a few rows into a loop quite easily, pass it back and ensure life is good.