Brian Donovan asks why use Templating Engines?
I agree that the reasons given in the “why use Smarty” FAQ, such as “keeping the designers out of trouble” aren’t that great. But I like that ‘extra layer’ of a templating system because I’d rather not add and maintain methods to generate HTML from objects. Moving the HTML piece to a template means you’re managing fewer files, and your layout, rather than the underlying objects is probably the most volatile.
And in systems such as Movable Type and Blogger, that have to support multiple layouts for multiple users, templates are the most feasible way to support that functionality.
