A small and ultra-lightweight system, with all the power of any fully featured text-based templating system (such as mako or cheetah) and then some (no constraints on template file names or formats, restricted execution, automatic XSS protection, ...) that can be used in a web context or standalone, while being also incredibly fast, is Evoque Templating: http://evoque.gizmojo.org/
And the simplicity of the system means you can assimilate the entire thing in a single sitting, and thereafter easily remember the few key things to continue using it without constant re-consulting of the docs (that, actually, are also pretty good ;-) So yes, agree with you entirely, that shameless personal preference is important for choosing your templating system... ;) mario -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
