Summary

By now, you probably realize that using templates not only can make your code easier to maintain, but that the process itself ensures good programming practices. You have seen the entire spectrum of template systems from use of the simple include statement to the Smarty template system, which incorporates its own programming language. It's up to you to choose which is the best for you. The old saying, "Don't try to kill a fly with a sledgehammer," is quite true in this circumstanceoveruse or misuse of templates can cause even more problems in your scripts than never using them at all.