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I'm agreeing with everything you said, but still I don't know why it's a defacto standard for template "engines" targetting HTML or other markup to invent ad-ho

I'm agreeing with everything you said, but still I don't know why it's a defacto standard for template "engines" targetting HTML or other markup to invent ad-hoc syntax rules involving Unix shell-like $s and/or curly-braces and/or dotted paths ;) When SGML, since the begin of times, has entities/entity references (plus CDATA/RCDATA marked sections) for exactly that purpose. Plus, can actually encode/quote expanded text in a context-dependent way (eg attributes vs elements) and prevent or allow expansion of replacement text into <script> directed by allowed content models, and prevent other injections using HTML-aware templating.

WalterGR 5y ago
it's a defacto standard for template "engines" targetting HTML or other markup to invent ad-hoc syntax rule Totally. My hypothesis: people enjoy writing templating engines, which is why there are so many. And people especially enjoy inventing their own programming languages. Templating engines are the perfect place for a web developer to dip their toes as gently as desired into language creation, in a format that’s kind of fun and is also immediately relevant and useful.