Hacker News Reader

Actually, Handlebars.js is a 2 step process. First step is compiling the syntax to something the runtime can understand, and the other is actually executing at runtime.

Emblem.js just replaces the first step of that process. So technically no more steps than plain Handlebars.

An alternative point of view is that each level of abstraction offers an insertion point for specialized tweaks without having to drop all the way down to the bottom level. Is that of practical significance? I have no idea. But it could be.

It's turtles (or you know, compilation) all the way down.