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I think that generalizing from your own personal experience is probably a bad idea here. I personally learn syntax very easily probably because I place very lit
by zaphar 11y ago
I think that generalizing from your own personal experience is probably a bad idea here. I personally learn syntax very easily probably because I place very little emphasis on syntax and far more on semantics. However I have met people who place a lot of emphasis on syntax. For them the syntax of a language is a large hindrance.
I suspect there are people for whom syntax has a large impact on productivity. Especially when first getting familiar with a language. I don't think downplaying that is wise.
- vezzy-fnord 11y agoThe point is Erlang's syntax is something of a joke for whatever reason, so I figured I'd offer a counterexample. Honestly I see it as just slightly less juvenile than "Lost In Stupid Parentheses".
- klibertp 11y agoIt's much more complex than that. Learning new syntax, for example, is completely different beast than actually using the syntax. Syntax has non-trivial - and rarely understood - influence on code readability and language idioms. Constructs with syntactic support tend to see more usage than the "bare" features - it takes a language as impoverished as JavaScript to convince people that they don't need syntactic sugar to use those features. Language syntax affects tooling to a great extent. And so on. So, in short: syntax does matter, although in a different way than most people think. On the other hand, people who are fixated on some syntax should just stop. Writing a couple of lexers/parsers helps here. Knowing different kinds - of flavours - of syntax helps even more. Syntax does matter, but not nearly as much as such people seem to think.