The top complain I've heard about syntax is that too many people focus on it ;-p Maybe that's because it's the first and only thing one can see and therefore i

The top complain I've heard about syntax is that too many people focus on it ;-p Maybe that's because it's the first and only thing one can see and therefore it's cheap to have an opinion? Or is it because too many professionals are used to languages which are little more than a syntax on top of a toy evaluator? When I first try ocaml long ago, I though overcoming the syntax would be a huge challenge (especially since I was using lisp at the time). Surprisingly, I got used to it after the first night, and even started to like it. Just a single data point of course, but it seems useful to warn new programmers that your first impressions on the syntax of a language are just that. Also, your estimation of the time that would be required to learn a new language based on how easily you can parse the syntax at first sight is completely wrong. It took me longer to understand some error messages that the compiler threw at me long after I though I could "speak ocaml" than to build an initial understanding of the syntax (roughly 2 hours). All of the above, of course, is just a disgruntled and grumpy way to say: despite we all know we don't care about the syntax of any language once we know it, it's still an overly important factor to drive a language adoption (or, in the case of ocaml, disaffection). Therefore, let's hope this new "revised syntax" will help many more programmers discover more sophisticated languages than the industry standards!