What is the actual benefit of slash, compared to python or ruby with a templating engine? Something like http://slim-lang.com/ which is ruby templateing for example.

The PHP approach seems kind of messy in jumbling together (1) a programming language and (2) plain HTML notation

Also:

Are you just feeding through the HTML parts or are they parsed/validated/inspectable? Can one work with DOM nodes? (This is what I like about https://github.com/weavejester/hiccup/wiki/Syntax )