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I know that some PL experts tend to write off syntax as an issue of secondary importance, but for many developers, it's a critical part of code readability. I'

I know that some PL experts tend to write off syntax as an issue of secondary importance, but for many developers, it's a critical part of code readability. I've spent much too much time trying to untangle masses of ill-written JavaScript with various (or no) levels of indentation, and braces scattered across the screen. I love working with Python, CoffeeScript, and Haskell because the code is almost always very readable because of whitespace (from what I've seen, Ruby is also very readable). I'm intensively interested in Rust as a possible alternative to C or C++ -- Go is a notstarter since I can't even compile as shared object library in it. However, I wish the designers of Rust had taken the arguments for whitespace into serious consideration. There's a large number of Python and Ruby programmers looking for an alternative to C and C++ as a lower-level language to call using an FFI when we need more speed, and for most of us, readability (and therefore syntax) is a major issue. Nonetheless, Rust seems like a very cool language, and I'm looking forward to trying it out.

MatthewPhillips 15y ago
I understand your reasoning, I find constructs such as: if(foo) { doSomething(); } else { doSomethingElse(); } to be rather unreadable. My solution is to not write it that way. My observation is that code style is very important to Ruby and Python developers and less important to those from C-family backgrounds. That is, a lot of Ruby developers, for example, refuse to touch anything containing braces whereas few C-family developers require them. I think the solution is that developers with a Python/Ruby background need to create a systems language, instead of expecting those with different backgrounds to be converted to the Python/Ruby-ists mindset. But in reality it seems that few Python/Ruby developers are all that interested in systems languages whereas those with C-family backgrounds are very interested (hence the situation that presently exists).
- webjprgm 15y ago
  Fork Rust and change only the syntax, just to make it use whitespace for blocks. PL experts see syntax as secondary because it is something that can arbitrarily change. Take Racket for example. They built into the language the ability to plug in arbitrary syntaxes and still use the same language tools and API. I got tired of () when I was learning Racket and wrote an alternate syntax that used whitespace indentation and converted to 100% compatible s-exp Racket code. So, you can have a whitespace-based version of Rust easily. The practical problem is that then you'd split the community between the two syntaxes since you couldn't copy-paste code examples from one syntax into the other. That could be problematic for building a large base of support. Take D for example where they had fragmentation problems with two standard libraries. Perhaps a split based on syntax would be less? (Since code written in one could be shared with the other.) But it would still cause problems in how the language is marketed to new developers.

MatthewPhillips 15y ago

I understand your reasoning, I find constructs such as: if(foo) { doSomething(); } else { doSomethingElse(); } to be rather unreadable. My solution is to not write it that way. My observation is that code style is very important to Ruby and Python developers and less important to those from C-family backgrounds. That is, a lot of Ruby developers, for example, refuse to touch anything containing braces whereas few C-family developers require them. I think the solution is that developers with a Python/Ruby background need to create a systems language, instead of expecting those with different backgrounds to be converted to the Python/Ruby-ists mindset. But in reality it seems that few Python/Ruby developers are all that interested in systems languages whereas those with C-family backgrounds are very interested (hence the situation that presently exists).

webjprgm 15y ago
Fork Rust and change only the syntax, just to make it use whitespace for blocks. PL experts see syntax as secondary because it is something that can arbitrarily change. Take Racket for example. They built into the language the ability to plug in arbitrary syntaxes and still use the same language tools and API. I got tired of () when I was learning Racket and wrote an alternate syntax that used whitespace indentation and converted to 100% compatible s-exp Racket code. So, you can have a whitespace-based version of Rust easily. The practical problem is that then you'd split the community between the two syntaxes since you couldn't copy-paste code examples from one syntax into the other. That could be problematic for building a large base of support. Take D for example where they had fragmentation problems with two standard libraries. Perhaps a split based on syntax would be less? (Since code written in one could be shared with the other.) But it would still cause problems in how the language is marketed to new developers.