Template Toolkit’s DEFAULT does not do short-circuit evaluation like you might think it would. If you have

[% DEFAULT foo = user.calculate_foo; %]

Then the results of the method call user.calculate_foo are assigned to foo, unless foo already has a true value. However, whether or not foo already has a true value, user.calculcate_foo is always invoked. You might expect the code to look like this:

$foo = $user->calculate_foo() unless $foo;

But it’s really like this;

$temp = $user->calculate_foo();
$foo = $temp unless $foo;

So, if user.calculate_foo is an expensive function that you don’t want to invoke unless you have to, you’ll have to resort to an explicit IF block:

IF !foo;
    foo = user.calculate_foo;
END

It’s also worth noting that DEFAULT is not for checking if a variable is set, but for checking if it is true.