Yet client-side React is faster than string template languages for most practical purposes.
And rarely is speed the most important attribute of a template language. If it was, we'd be writing all of our server code in C.
At least for DRYML, it only requires valid XML on input, it can emit any string on output.
But in essence, you're right. String templating languages have been more successful than TAL or DRYML. But my belief is that's because we just haven't done it properly yet. TAL suffers XML disease, and DRYML has other problems.
And rarely is speed the most important attribute of a template language. If it was, we'd be writing all of our server code in C.
At least for DRYML, it only requires valid XML on input, it can emit any string on output.
But in essence, you're right. String templating languages have been more successful than TAL or DRYML. But my belief is that's because we just haven't done it properly yet. TAL suffers XML disease, and DRYML has other problems.