When it comes to separating code and presentation, web applications always had templating and template engines with various features, performance and support. We even implemented own template engines in Java back in 2000 before someone in the team had the idea to google for existing tools (his name was "Not invented here syndrom"-killer).

Smarty is not a new PHP templating toolkit… if fact you could read about Smarty already five years ago.

What I like about it, is that it is STILL there… this toolkit has matured and seems to be one or the most respected, matured and flexible php template engine. The open plugin concept and the fastest with the PHP code compiling.

A ton of

• built-in functions
• nice template logic for loops & simple ifs, variable modifiers for typical upcase,lowcase, date-formatting etc. that the core programmer doesn't have to care about
• even math in the template
• debuging support
• resource plugins – get your content and templates from a database, RPC, LDAP or whatever your datasource gets ahold in PHP
• functions to do even funky stuff like dynamically register a compiler function plugin for controlling the PHP code generation (=caching) of the templates to final extend without tampering the Smarty code

Used in a ton of CMS systems like XOOPS, Drupal, Tiki CMS/Groupware and other cool software packages like MagpieRSS (expat based RSS parser), shopping cart software like Xcart, billing software like aMember , and a big heap of Smarty Plugins in the repository…

Last year even MovableType implemented Smarty for it's new PHP based architecture – while my stoneage MT version here still uses perl only.

With this big community, great architecture and full featureset & plugins, this is definately a PHP framework to base your business on!