PHP's past frameworkless mode of programming (though even goto's were shunned, if I think back a decade to when I was writing that sort of PHP).
You are right though, that it can get messy very quickly. But there is a case to be made for it in some circumstances; at least in terms of being able to render a page server-side as well as having it available as an API. I don't know enough about Erlang to say whether this is a good way of doing so, however, but it can be nice to have your templates with the interpolation points and small bits of display "logic" (if, then, etc.) all separate from your proper API written in a proper style.
