This topic proposal is inspired by:
* https://wikimania2015.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Wikitext_is_broken,_long_live_wikitext_(2.0)
* https://wikimania2015.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Templates_are_dead!_Long_live_templates!
It will hopefully include discussions of several on-going and prospective projects in the template and parsing space:
* Replacement of Tidy (T89331) and tidy-ing templates *before* inclusion ("[hygenic templates](https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3ATemplates_are_dead!_Long_live_templates!.pdf&page=27)")
* Efficient incremental template update after editing (instead of queuing entire articles for reparsing)
* "[Wikitext 2.0](https://wikimania2015.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Wikitext_is_broken,_long_live_wikitext_%282.0%29)" proposals to remove the skeletons and corner cases from wikitext parsing
* Tools to more easier create balanced templates ("[hygenic arguments](https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3ATemplates_are_dead!_Long_live_templates!.pdf&page=31)")
As well as improvements to code/data/presentation separation in the template engine, moving away from unsafe string concatenation:
* [Content Widgets](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsoid/Content_widgets)
* [Scribunto improvements](https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3ATemplates_are_dead!_Long_live_templates!.pdf&page=35)
* {T379}
* [Template Object Model](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Template_Object_Model)
* [TAssembly](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/HTML_templating_library/Knockoff_-_Tassembly) (can be backend for angularJS-like and mustache-like templates)
One half of the goal for this topic would be to evangelize the need for template improvements, gather use cases from template authors, and communicate/disseminate some of the changes "definitely" coming up.
The other half would be to discuss the more speculative proposals, allow cross-fertilization of the best ideas, and hopefully commit to putting resources behind one or a few of the most promising proposals to bring them to a proof-of-concept implementation.