If I understand correctly, some templating transforms the <var>s, etc., into JavaScript. Why not write the JS as a regular program? The syntax you have doesn't

If I understand correctly, some templating transforms the <var>s, etc., into JavaScript. Why not write the JS as a regular program? The syntax you have doesn't seem dramatically easier than just ordinary JS and has to be a bit confining. Is it really that repetitive, or does the code need to be expanded in different ways in different contexts?