Dude.... I get laughed at for the things I do with templates (html page with 20k input elements) until people realize what I am doing with them (a bulk payment interface for paying 5000 invoices in a compact workflow).

I have found that any complete templating system has sufficient flexibility and extensibility to do what you want. Though I use Perl's Template Toolkit.

It's a drag when what you're working on is such a unique snowflake that nothing really smart teams have worked on for years is able to help you.

I'm going to abuse a Bruce Schneier quote and suggest that if you're trying to get a job done and you start by writing a template interpreter, you're doing it wrong.

What are you building there? A nuclear reactor?

Probably a web-based one at that.

Show HN: our HTML5 nuclear reactor.

Oh dear. "BUT, ITS SANDBOXED ITS OK!" :)

Only functions properly on worstations powered by Intel Unobtanium Chips ;-)

Find the syntax you are most comfortable with and you'll always find something inspired by it in your next language.

As someone who really loved Jinja2 templates, I was very pleased to find Swig on Node.