You could also ask the same question about server-side templating: Why do we string-interpolate rather than manipulate the DOM? DOM manipulation is more robust

You could also ask the same question about server-side templating: Why do we string-interpolate rather than manipulate the DOM? DOM manipulation is more robust and far, far more secure (you can auto-escape variables as you know their actual context). I can think of a couple of ways to do that but it hasn't taken off largely yet: https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/xhp-a-new-way-to-write-php/294003943919 https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/xhp-a-ne... http://liftweb.net/ http://liftweb.net/