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The OP doesn't really touch on this aspect, but I think one of the most important traits of a PL is what it doesn't let you say (there's almost nothing that Lis

The OP doesn't really touch on this aspect, but I think one of the most important traits of a PL is what it doesn't let you say (there's almost nothing that Lisp doesn't let you say, which is a double-edged sword) A majority of Haskell's innovations have been in the space of placing interesting new kinds of constraints on code Rust's big innovation is not allowing you to make memory errors (in designated sections of your code) Go's headlining feature is not allowing people to write code that's extremely abstracted, which helps readability And this isn't just for avoiding mistakes: code that's very regular can be more easily processed by a machine to make it more efficient So looking at it through the lens of syntax is missing a lot of the picture. You're right that syntax is rarely important. At the end of the day the differences between code and notation are: 1) code often grows to enormous sizes where managing it becomes a challenge, and 2) code is processed by a machine

chrismorgan 5y ago
> Rust's big innovation is not allowing you to make memory errors (in designated sections of your code) I’d actually say Rust’s ownership model is its defining feature and big innovation; memory safety without garbage collection was the original goal of the project, but that has arguably actually ended up being more of a side-effect of the ownership model than the actual artefact, from the innovations perspective. Several other languages have been adopting significant ideas from Rust’s ownership model without actually needing it for memory safety. (Also, some factual clarifications on the wording you used: Rust doesn’t allow you to make memory errors except in areas marked with the “unsafe” keyword—you’re marking small dangerous zones, rather than marking safe zones. But scripting languages are normally memory-safe too, it’s the absence of any garbage collector that makes Rust special there.)
- brundolf 5y ago
  Either way the point stands: Rust’s biggest features are about what you can’t do, not what you can do
  - chrismorgan 5y ago
    Absolutely.

chrismorgan 5y ago

> Rust's big innovation is not allowing you to make memory errors (in designated sections of your code) I’d actually say Rust’s ownership model is its defining feature and big innovation; memory safety without garbage collection was the original goal of the project, but that has arguably actually ended up being more of a side-effect of the ownership model than the actual artefact, from the innovations perspective. Several other languages have been adopting significant ideas from Rust’s ownership model without actually needing it for memory safety. (Also, some factual clarifications on the wording you used: Rust doesn’t allow you to make memory errors except in areas marked with the “unsafe” keyword—you’re marking small dangerous zones, rather than marking safe zones. But scripting languages are normally memory-safe too, it’s the absence of any garbage collector that makes Rust special there.)

brundolf 5y ago
Either way the point stands: Rust’s biggest features are about what you can’t do, not what you can do
- chrismorgan 5y ago
  Absolutely.