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I think the primary drawback of languages with complex syntax is the additional barrier to entry it creates for developers to write more tools for the language.

I think the primary drawback of languages with complex syntax is the additional barrier to entry it creates for developers to write more tools for the language. Many more people have started a Scheme interpreter than their own C++ compiler. If we had better tools, we wouldn’t necessarily be limited to just one user-facing syntax for a language. The syntax could simply be a preference in the tools. My point is that as long as we are stuck in text-file-oriented thinking, no one is even thinking about these possibilities.

munificent 8y ago
> Many more people have started a Scheme interpreter than their own C++ compiler. And yet many more people are writing C++ code. Toolability definitely matters, but the empirical observation is that a relatively small number of tools for complex languages used by a large number of people seems to provide a lot of benefit. > My point is that as long as we are stuck in text-file-oriented thinking, no one is even thinking about these possibilities. Thousands of people are thinking about this. I've been reading blog posts and manifestos about the death of text-based syntax literally since the 90s. What I think most of those people overlook is that if you think programmers struggle to write text, you're really underestimating how much they would struggle to layout boxes and lines or do whatever other spatial/visual user experience you have in mind instead.