Ah, so close.<p>I really just want something like Handlebars, with a generic adapter for any language for compilation.<p>Then you can load with javascript a client-side controller if you want to add in interactivity.<p>---<p>To expand, I think the idea solution would be the following:<p>1. Server side view, let's call it "Bars"<p>2. Bars can be written on the front-end or back-end, does't matter. It'll compile to BarsHTML.<p>3. If you write Bars on the back-end, then when you serve your page it'll compile Bars into BarsHTML.<p>3a. If you want to sprinkle JS onto Bars, you'll use BarsControllerJS, an adapter to whatever framework of your choice, to manipulate it. The main difference between this and manipulating the DOM is that the interface to do this is not DOM centric.<p>4. If you write Bars on the front-end, it's the same as (3), but you get (3a). If you decide you'd rather do server side rendering, you literally just move your views to the server. The controller is already abstracted, so you wouldn't need to do anything else.