Normally, I'm a Java guy, but I've chosen Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) due to the prevalence of the Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP (LAMP) platform. All we're really doing here is using variables and Server Side Includes to give our templates consistency and flexibility.
Let's break down the initial HTML into a nice PHP boilerplate. If you want to save this to a file for now, may I suggest the /boilerplate.php file:
<?php
/* the document title in the <head> */
$documentTitle = "jQuery Mobile PHP Boilerplate";
/* Left link of the header bar
*
* NOTE: If you set $headerLeftLinkText = 'Back' then it will become a
back button, in which case, no other field for $headerLeft need be defined.
*/
$headerLeftHref = "/";
$headerLeftLinkText = "Home";
$headerLeftIcon = "home";
/* The title text which shows up in the header bar */
$headerTitle = "Boilerplate";
/* Right link...