It makes perfect sense if you consider that String Templates don't just support interpolation, but also /escaping/ of values. Therefore, Java's existing syntax

It makes perfect sense if you consider that String Templates don't just support interpolation, but also /escaping/ of values. Therefore, Java's existing syntax for escaping stuff is the obvious choice for consistency reasons. If interpolation is all you want, use `STR`. In the future, we will see libraries with template processors for regex patterns, SQL, XML, etc.