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> domain specific languages, while much more efficient are unpopular

JSX seems pretty popular, and when XML was popular similar XML embeddings were, as well. Templating languages are popular. Heck, the relative popularity of “general purpose” programming languages is not consistent across domains, with domain fit being a factor even for general purpose languages.

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I would say that JSX is popular precisely because the cost of teaching it is low, which in turn is because of its similarity to other commonly used notation (HTML / XML).

Of course it's got its fair share of dumb gotchas, but I found it far easier to learn than, say, any of the myriad Rails DSLs.

> JSX seems pretty popular, and when XML was popular similar XML embeddings were, as well. Templating languages are popular.

I don't think any of these things are popular; in my experience people using them mostly hate them, or at best grudgingly accept that they're the least-bad option.

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