A particular strength of the Template Toolkit is that it doesn’t try and do everything by itself. It concentrates on providing features that are generally applicable to template processing, leaving application-specific functionality to be added using Perl.

We’ve seen how you can define dynamic variables to allow your templates to access subroutines and objects written in Perl. The plugin mechanism allows you to bundle Perl code in self-contained modules that can be loaded straight into a template with a USE directive, eliminating the need to write a Perl wrapper program.

If that isn’t enough, you can also define your own filters and virtual methods, and even change the language itself if you’re feeling brave. This is covered in Chapter 8.

The fundamental concept that we’re trying to get across is that the Template Toolkit is, as the name suggests, a toolkit for building things. It was designed to be easily extended and integrated with other components so that it can work within your requirements. It is not a complete web programming language or content management system that tries to do everything, and thus forces you into its way of thinking and working.

Sometimes that means you’ve got a little more thinking to do for yourself, rather than just blindly following the One True Way that we could have chosen for you. However, the benefit is that your solutions will be more flexible and adaptable, as well as better suited to addressing the problems at hand.

No two web sites (or document systems in general) are alike. Similarly, no two web developers agree on every issue that presents itself in the design and implementation of a web site. They each have their own ideas about the best way to tackle different problems, and prioritize different concerns according to the unique perspective that their past experience affords them. Perfect solutions don’t exist (or if they do, we’ve never encountered them). With this in mind, strive to build a system that works today and tomorrow, even if it doesn’t solve every problem overnight. Know when to compromise ideals for the sake of a pragmatic solution and when to stand firm on the issues that are important.

So the golden rule of web programming is that there is no golden rule. There are golden tools, and we like to consider the Template Toolkit among them, but a tool is only as good as the person who uses it. In the next chapter, we look at using the Template Toolkit to generate web content so that you can become familiar with its ways and start crafting your own web sites.  

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