Yeah it's a moot point either way, because ERB is like that... but - This wasn't an optimization, it was literally the first thing I thought of when I wrote my

Yeah it's a moot point either way, because ERB is like that... but - This wasn't an optimization, it was literally the first thing I thought of when I wrote my first and only template engine 10 years ago. And I have seen plenty of others do it; it is "obvious". The code is the exact same length as the string version, so I don't consider it an optimization. - Python's WSGI accepts an iterable of strings for the body. From a cursory reading, looks like Ruby's rack does too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rack_(web_server_interface)#Example_application https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rack_(web_server_interface)#Ex... e.g. it's ["Hello, World"] and not "Hello, World" (I don't know Ruby that well though) Maybe frameworks mess it up in the middle...