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Comment by whalesalad | Hacker News Reader

I've been hand coding HTML for years. Switching to HAML was a no brainer. We already write indented HTML, why worry about extra angle bracket syntax and closing tags? I'm surprised by the number of people who don't like using technology for what it was invented to do: make your life easier.

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I'm surprised by the number of people who don't like using technology for what it was invented to do: make your life easier.

That's my point - I don't see this being much easier or particularly valuable, considering I will always have to be highly competent with straight HTML regardless. To me, this is a mental switch with little payoff (handlebars + HTML is fine).

This is a JavaScript templating language; aside from the fact that I like Emblem's syntax way better, you can't use HAML for JavaScript templates unless you go the hacky/ugly hamlbars route.

Seeing as you can obviously use technology to not worry about extra angle bracket syntax and closing tags, I don't see why you need to hide them in order to achieve that. I'm surprised by the number of people who want to strip out visual cues like that. To me, that makes life harder.

Some people like different things than the things you like.

I like `abstractions` instead of `tools that let me coexist with clunky things`.

Precisely. The abstraction removes human error. Coffeescript is a great example: it lets me forget about extra commas in an array, or semicolons. Jquery is another: it lets me forget about the inconsistencies between certain browsers with, for example, Ajax.

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