You fell into a trap yourself! Did I say somewhere that syntax is unimportant to me? I am as particular about syntax as anyone you are likely to find. What I a

You fell into a trap yourself! Did I say somewhere that syntax is unimportant to me? I am as particular about syntax as anyone you are likely to find. What I actually am saying is that missing out on the good things a language has to offer because of an inability to get over your dislike of the syntax is a weakness. If you have no taste, there is nothing to get over. That's not what I'm saying. Yes, yes, I know how you "suffer". That's something you can get over. I don't know your goals--if you program only to satisfy your own creative urges then it doesn't matter how you choose a language. Assuming you work on things that other people also work on, then there is a cost to rejecting a language only because of syntax. For example, if you are doing some work in an area where everyone is using Python numeric libraries, and you refuse to use Python because of fussiness about syntax, then you can't collaborate with those people. There's no good reason for that. Reasonable people should be able to see when certain choices are arbitrary, and get over their attachment to arbitrary choices when it gets in the way of more important things, like collaboration. Failure to do what I just described is endemic among programmers, to our shame.