It is significantly easier to write a parser if you assume names don't have spaces in them. I also tend to think that names with spaces would be confusing to re

It is significantly easier to write a parser if you assume names don't have spaces in them. I also tend to think that names with spaces would be confusing to read as well: you'd end up with statements like this `x = foo bar baz (buzz)`. Certainly not unparseable, but I don't think the convenience is worth giving up space as an almost universal token separator.