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In my experience, everyone finds the syntax of their favourite language lovely - I love (mostly) C++.

jeltz 1y ago
I am an exception then. Rust may be my favourite language but the syntax is pretty awful and one of its biggest weaknesses. I also love Ruby but I am pretty meh about its syntax.
- zabzonk 1y ago
  I don't think many people would start to use a language unless the found the syntax at least a little simpatico - but I guess they could be drawn by the semantics it provides.
  - sampullman 1y ago
    I (almost) don't consider syntax at all when considering a language, just whether it's suitable for the task. The exception is languages with syntax that require a non-standard keyboard.
  - jeltz 1y ago
    I mostly chose languages due to semantics.
ben-schaaf 1y ago
As someone who works almost exclusively in C++, the whole "most vexing parse" makes the syntax indefensible.
- zabzonk 1y ago
  In my experience, people simply go "Doh, of course!" or don't write the wrong code in the first place. It has never caused me any real problems. For those of you that may be curious, or not know C++, in C++ this: Obj x(); is a declaration of a function called x that returns an Obj. Whereas this: Obj x; defines (possibly, depending on context) an instance of the type Obj called x. Most people get over this pretty quickly. If that is your main complaint about a language then the language doesn't have too many problems. Not that I'm suggesting that C++ doesn't have more serious problems.
aeonik 1y ago
Not me! I don't like the syntax of Lisps, with the leading parenthesis to begin every expression. I use it anyway because it's so useful and powerful. And I don't have any better ideas.
- zabzonk 1y ago
  > leading parenthesis to begin every expression well, that's not really what it is doing - it is saying apply this function to these parameters.
  - brabel 1y ago
    No, it's an s-expression... it may be a function call, but it may also be a macro, and inside a macro it may be a parameter list or a number of other things.
guidopallemans 1y ago
I don't like how Python does lambdas, its indentation-based blocks, how there's both ' and ", I could go on.

I am an exception then. Rust may be my favourite language but the syntax is pretty awful and one of its biggest weaknesses. I also love Ruby but I am pretty meh about its syntax.

zabzonk 1y ago
I don't think many people would start to use a language unless the found the syntax at least a little simpatico - but I guess they could be drawn by the semantics it provides.
- sampullman 1y ago
  I (almost) don't consider syntax at all when considering a language, just whether it's suitable for the task. The exception is languages with syntax that require a non-standard keyboard.
- jeltz 1y ago
  I mostly chose languages due to semantics.

ben-schaaf 1y ago

As someone who works almost exclusively in C++, the whole "most vexing parse" makes the syntax indefensible.

zabzonk 1y ago
In my experience, people simply go "Doh, of course!" or don't write the wrong code in the first place. It has never caused me any real problems. For those of you that may be curious, or not know C++, in C++ this: Obj x(); is a declaration of a function called x that returns an Obj. Whereas this: Obj x; defines (possibly, depending on context) an instance of the type Obj called x. Most people get over this pretty quickly. If that is your main complaint about a language then the language doesn't have too many problems. Not that I'm suggesting that C++ doesn't have more serious problems.

aeonik 1y ago

Not me! I don't like the syntax of Lisps, with the leading parenthesis to begin every expression. I use it anyway because it's so useful and powerful. And I don't have any better ideas.

zabzonk 1y ago
> leading parenthesis to begin every expression well, that's not really what it is doing - it is saying apply this function to these parameters.
- brabel 1y ago
  No, it's an s-expression... it may be a function call, but it may also be a macro, and inside a macro it may be a parameter list or a number of other things.

guidopallemans 1y ago

I don't like how Python does lambdas, its indentation-based blocks, how there's both ' and ", I could go on.