Uniform HTML templating language

Question

It seems like every web framework has its own pet template language. Ruby has eRuby, Python's django uses the Django template language, Haskell has Heist and Hamlet, Java's got JSP, and then there's PHP...

My question is, has anyone tried creating One Templating Language to Rule Them All? Are there any such templating languages that at least have some widespread support amongst the varying web frameworks?

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 27 '11 at 06:35

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Mustache maybe.

answered Mar 27 '11 at 06:35

Andy Ford

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Important to note that this is because it can call functions in a language-agnostic (though very limited) fashion. – devth Sep 26 '11 at 19:31
It is easy for something as trivial as Mustache to come close to universal. :-) – Lukas Eder Mar 27 '13 at 09:58

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 27 '11 at 06:19

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XSLT might be a candidate as a "universal" template language.

It might also be the greatest evil that this land has ever seen, but that's up for debate.

answered Mar 27 '11 at 06:19

Charles

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definitely the greatest evil this land has ever seen. – Andy Ford Mar 27 '11 at 06:32
Well, it isn't universal in a way that it depends on XML as a data source - even if it can be used to produce output other than XML – Lukas Eder Mar 27 '13 at 09:54

Kamiccolo · Answer 3 · 2013-01-17T20:01:01.033

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uh... Trying to find something like that for WEB project which would be able to render html from same templates at both sides. Server and Client. Already mentioned Mustache seams to be most suitable choice so far...

Maybe this JSON based solution will sound interesting...

Also HAML looks promising.

edited Jan 17 '13 at 20:01

answered Jan 17 '13 at 19:39

Kamiccolo

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 27 '11 at 06:05

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NHAML/HAML is the closest you'll get to a standard.

answered Mar 27 '11 at 06:05

SQLMason

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Eran Medan · Answer 5 · 2011-03-27T06:49:27.373

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Freemarker (and Velocity to some extent) seem to be supported by a growing number of frameworks (Spring, Tiles, Struts and more) and can be used to generate code in any framework, but I don't think there is "one template engine to rule them all". If there was though, I would choose Freemarker any day

edited Mar 27 '11 at 06:49

answered Mar 27 '11 at 06:44

Eran Medan

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If I understand correctly, both are Java only? :( Though I suppose that 98% of truly enterprisey projects are in Java nowadays... – Dan Burton Mar 30 '11 at 21:47
Velocity has a .NET port (http://nvelocity.sourceforge.net/) but I don't know of one for Freemarker – Eran Medan Apr 02 '11 at 20:13
These are hardly choices if you need client side templates. – Seppo Erviälä Jun 08 '12 at 07:35
True, though I am not sure the OP meant to include them. if so, I would recommend Handlebars or DoT.js rather than Mustache – Eran Medan Jun 08 '12 at 12:41

Uniform HTML templating language

5 Answers5