From DotGeek.org this morning, there's a new tutorial for anyone out there looking to get into using PHP and the Smarty Templates for templating your site.

In their new posting, PHP Templates? Get Smarty!: Why templating? It's very simple, really. Web design and programming are closely related and yet are very different. Designers speak in such languages as HTML and CSS, and programmers are often heard speaking in the tongues of PHP and SQL. [...] Given the importance of website templating, there are a myriad of options from which to choose a template system implementation. Many individual members of the open-source software development community have contributed simple and functional versions of PHP-based templating systems. [...] Smarty runs well and efficiently. It even has partial page caching abilities for those who wish to fully optimize their templated websites.

They give you examples and explain the code to help you get started on a simple example. And, of course, just to ensure that it's unbiased, their parting comment: The author has no affiliation, partnership, or agreement with the fine folks at Smarty but wholeheartedly recommends Smarty for all your PHP templating needs!