I suppose that depends on whether you look at it as a templating DSL within a JavaScript expression, or expressions within a templating language. A `for` loop

I suppose that depends on whether you look at it as a templating DSL within a JavaScript expression, or expressions within a templating language. A `for` loop doesn't really make sense from the JS expression viewpoint — `for` loops in JS are statements, and in languages that do treat them as expressions they usually evaluate to the last iteration of the loop. From there, the filter/map makes more sense, since it's an expression that evaluates to an array of template-y stuff. If you see it primarily as a templating langauge, though, the `for` loop makes way more sense — every iteration, it's adding a string to the template.