augroup templates
  au!
  " read in template files
  autocmd BufNewFile *.* silent! execute '0r $HOME/.vim/templates/skeleton.'.expand("<afile>:e")

  " parse special text in the templates after the read
  autocmd BufNewFile * %s#\[:VIM_EVAL:\]\(.\{-\}\)\[:END_EVAL:\]#\=eval(submatch(1))#ge
augroup END