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Indentation-sensitivity is so popular that only one language in the Top 20 programming languages has it. That's nearly 40 years after I saw my first indentation

Indentation-sensitivity is so popular that only one language in the Top 20 programming languages has it. That's nearly 40 years after I saw my first indentation-sensitive language: occam. Indentation-sensitivity seemed like a great idea in 1983. I'm not convinced today.

082349872349872 4y ago
The original formulation of the offside rule made provision for handwritten entry. If/when computers get small enough to lose the keyboards and fast enough to reliably OCR, maybe that provision will be rejuvenated?
dropofwill 4y ago
Not sure what list you’re referring to, but I would expect to find Python and Scala in it, maybe OCaml or Haskell depending on the criteria. Personally I think it causes more problems in interpreted languages, a lot of those disappear with a compiler with thoughtful error messages like Scala.
- lelanthran 4y ago
  > Not sure what list you’re referring to, but I would expect to find Python and Scala in it, maybe OCaml or Haskell depending on the criteria. Surely neither OCaml nor Haskell are in the top 20 of any "Most Used Programming Languages" list.
  - dropofwill 4y ago
    Maybe of undergrads at a French university :)
- andsoitis 4y ago
  A common list people have in mind is TIOBE: https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/ https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/ I will give you that for highly specialized domains, those lists would look different (eg in some niche OCaml would be high while Rust would be low, or R high where C++ is lower down the list) , but it is telling that Scala comes in at #32 when compared to other languages that, I think, occupy a similar problem space. Of course, Python is #1 on the TIOBE list (and have had a strong showing for years), which I ascribe to the overall productivity and wide application domain fit. So, whether or not white space is objectively bad (for any language or only some languages), it hasn’t detracted so much from Python’s popularity.
  - kaba0 4y ago
    Tiobe at a time had Visual Basic ahead of JS, let’s just ignore it.
  - still_grokking 4y ago
    > A common list people have in mind is TIOBE https://blog.nindalf.com/posts/stop-citing-tiobe/ https://blog.nindalf.com/posts/stop-citing-tiobe/
- aplusbi 4y ago
  OCaml isn't indentation sensitive, BTW.
still_grokking 4y ago
Python and Scala were already mentioned. But also C# has indentation-sensitivity. Otherwise multi-line strings would not work. I could imagine that other popular languages copied or will copy the same trick as C# does.

082349872349872 4y ago

The original formulation of the offside rule made provision for handwritten entry. If/when computers get small enough to lose the keyboards and fast enough to reliably OCR, maybe that provision will be rejuvenated?

dropofwill 4y ago

Not sure what list you’re referring to, but I would expect to find Python and Scala in it, maybe OCaml or Haskell depending on the criteria. Personally I think it causes more problems in interpreted languages, a lot of those disappear with a compiler with thoughtful error messages like Scala.

lelanthran 4y ago
> Not sure what list you’re referring to, but I would expect to find Python and Scala in it, maybe OCaml or Haskell depending on the criteria. Surely neither OCaml nor Haskell are in the top 20 of any "Most Used Programming Languages" list.
- dropofwill 4y ago
  Maybe of undergrads at a French university :)
andsoitis 4y ago
A common list people have in mind is TIOBE: https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/ https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/ I will give you that for highly specialized domains, those lists would look different (eg in some niche OCaml would be high while Rust would be low, or R high where C++ is lower down the list) , but it is telling that Scala comes in at #32 when compared to other languages that, I think, occupy a similar problem space. Of course, Python is #1 on the TIOBE list (and have had a strong showing for years), which I ascribe to the overall productivity and wide application domain fit. So, whether or not white space is objectively bad (for any language or only some languages), it hasn’t detracted so much from Python’s popularity.
- kaba0 4y ago
  Tiobe at a time had Visual Basic ahead of JS, let’s just ignore it.
- still_grokking 4y ago
  > A common list people have in mind is TIOBE https://blog.nindalf.com/posts/stop-citing-tiobe/ https://blog.nindalf.com/posts/stop-citing-tiobe/
aplusbi 4y ago
OCaml isn't indentation sensitive, BTW.

still_grokking 4y ago

Python and Scala were already mentioned. But also C# has indentation-sensitivity. Otherwise multi-line strings would not work. I could imagine that other popular languages copied or will copy the same trick as C# does.