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It says Coffeescript and Moonscript influenced Koto's syntax, which is a little worrying. IMO those languages are a little too flexible and sail too close to am

by pansa2 2y ago

It says Coffeescript and Moonscript influenced Koto's syntax, which is a little worrying. IMO those languages are a little too flexible and sail too close to ambiguity - very small changes to code can sometimes radically change its meaning. Edit: Sure enough, "whitespace is important in Koto, and because of optional parentheses, `f(1, 2)` is not the same as `f (1, 2)`. The former is parsed as a call to f with two arguments, whereas the latter is a call to f with a tuple as the single argument."

nine_k 2y ago
Oh, the usual Coffeescript footguns :( One of the problems of terse syntaxes is that one typo away from a syntactically valid program lies another syntactically valid program with entirely different semantics. I prefer a syntax that has enough "gaps" between syntactic constructs, so that a single typo usually leads to an obvious syntax error. In this regard, Python or Java or TS are comfortable, Haskell or Lisp or C are okay, and Coffescript or Scala or C++ are terrible.
Mawr 2y ago
Oh it has optional parentheses? Into the trash it goes. I'm guessing because "it's cleaner/simpler", but that's a shallow understanding of those words. Just because there are two characters fewer on the screen doesn't make the code simpler. Simple semantics are what you should aim for and inconsistencies like these throw a wrench into that. For example, strings in JSON vs YAML. Isn't it "simpler" to not have to quote every string? So long as your string isn't "no" that may be true. So now instead of a simple mental model of "every string must be quoted" it's "strings don't need quotes except for these specific exceptions that cause issues: <list>". So much simpler... sigh.
- dboreham 2y ago
  > Oh it has optional parentheses? Into the trash it goes. <virtual high five>
irh 2y ago
What I've had in mind with Koto is that when I need strictness and precision I'll generally be using Rust, and Koto is more intended for another aspect of programming where I want things to be much more fluid and easy-going. My thinking is that the potential footgun here is outweighed by the win of paren-free calls for quick scripting / rapid iteration, but it certainly counts towards the language strangeness budget [1] so I figured it was worth pointing out in the guide. [1] https://steveklabnik.com/writing/the-language-strangeness-budget https://steveklabnik.com/writing/the-language-strangeness-bu...
pepa65 2y ago
Can "always (or never) use parentheses for function calls" be enforced..?

by pansa2 2y ago

nine_k 2y ago

Oh, the usual Coffeescript footguns :( One of the problems of terse syntaxes is that one typo away from a syntactically valid program lies another syntactically valid program with entirely different semantics. I prefer a syntax that has enough "gaps" between syntactic constructs, so that a single typo usually leads to an obvious syntax error. In this regard, Python or Java or TS are comfortable, Haskell or Lisp or C are okay, and Coffescript or Scala or C++ are terrible.

Mawr 2y ago

Oh it has optional parentheses? Into the trash it goes. I'm guessing because "it's cleaner/simpler", but that's a shallow understanding of those words. Just because there are two characters fewer on the screen doesn't make the code simpler. Simple semantics are what you should aim for and inconsistencies like these throw a wrench into that. For example, strings in JSON vs YAML. Isn't it "simpler" to not have to quote every string? So long as your string isn't "no" that may be true. So now instead of a simple mental model of "every string must be quoted" it's "strings don't need quotes except for these specific exceptions that cause issues: <list>". So much simpler... sigh.

dboreham 2y ago
> Oh it has optional parentheses? Into the trash it goes. <virtual high five>

irh 2y ago

What I've had in mind with Koto is that when I need strictness and precision I'll generally be using Rust, and Koto is more intended for another aspect of programming where I want things to be much more fluid and easy-going. My thinking is that the potential footgun here is outweighed by the win of paren-free calls for quick scripting / rapid iteration, but it certainly counts towards the language strangeness budget [1] so I figured it was worth pointing out in the guide. [1] https://steveklabnik.com/writing/the-language-strangeness-budget https://steveklabnik.com/writing/the-language-strangeness-bu...

pepa65 2y ago

Can "always (or never) use parentheses for function calls" be enforced..?