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What makes Go's syntax that unintuitive to you? Go's syntax is really easy to most programmers who is willing to learn. It's probably just 1 days work to pick

What makes Go's syntax that unintuitive to you? Go's syntax is really easy to most programmers who is willing to learn. It's probably just 1 days work to pick it up. It's very similar to Swift's syntax in many aspects, and I don't hear anyone complaining Swift's syntax is not intuitive and just for the sake of being different. Perhaps instead of just claiming you can give us some examples on "syntax is all over the place" part?

fleitz 12y ago
I think the reason swift gets away with it is because it borrows enough from a language you already know that the rest feels like an addition. (eg. Python + that, C# plus this, OCaml + brackets, c++ plus ARC, ObjC minus square brackets) Also, swift has an API that's familiar to ObjC devs which means it's just changing brackets. It's pretty easy to port a ObjC program to swift line by line.
- kolev 12y ago
  Working with something familiar is always a good thing. Having something intuitive is a great pleasure for your soul - you memorize generic principles, not specific constructs. I like in rust that they really put abbreviation all across the board consistently. If they use "fn" as a keyword, also system lib is abbreviated similarly "to the max". I don't have to remember is it "string" or "str" - Rust consistency saves time and makes it obvious.
klibertp 12y ago
> syntax is really easy to most programmers who is willing to learn This is exactly how this sentence should look like, no need for any language at the beginning. While syntax does matter (and I only recently arrived at this conclusion) its "intuitiveness" or "similarity" is utterly unimportant. You either are a "real programmer" and have no problem picking up different syntaxes and semantics, or you're not. That's all there is to it.
- kolev 12y ago
  It is important - we're not just robots doing work to eat and have where to live, we need to enjoy what we do and having pleasant syntax is what made many fall in love with Ruby. Let's not pretend syntax doesn't matter - it does, indeed, otherwise there wouldn't be Scala today either!
  - WalterBright 12y ago
    I agree, syntax does matter. A program should look good on the page. It's much more satisfying to write code in a language that you can craft in an eye-pleasing manner.
kolev 12y ago
Please, don't compare Swift to Go! Swift is as elegant as D is, but not multi-platform yet, so, it's a "no go" for now.

fleitz 12y ago

I think the reason swift gets away with it is because it borrows enough from a language you already know that the rest feels like an addition. (eg. Python + that, C# plus this, OCaml + brackets, c++ plus ARC, ObjC minus square brackets) Also, swift has an API that's familiar to ObjC devs which means it's just changing brackets. It's pretty easy to port a ObjC program to swift line by line.

kolev 12y ago
Working with something familiar is always a good thing. Having something intuitive is a great pleasure for your soul - you memorize generic principles, not specific constructs. I like in rust that they really put abbreviation all across the board consistently. If they use "fn" as a keyword, also system lib is abbreviated similarly "to the max". I don't have to remember is it "string" or "str" - Rust consistency saves time and makes it obvious.

klibertp 12y ago

> syntax is really easy to most programmers who is willing to learn This is exactly how this sentence should look like, no need for any language at the beginning. While syntax does matter (and I only recently arrived at this conclusion) its "intuitiveness" or "similarity" is utterly unimportant. You either are a "real programmer" and have no problem picking up different syntaxes and semantics, or you're not. That's all there is to it.

kolev 12y ago
It is important - we're not just robots doing work to eat and have where to live, we need to enjoy what we do and having pleasant syntax is what made many fall in love with Ruby. Let's not pretend syntax doesn't matter - it does, indeed, otherwise there wouldn't be Scala today either!
- WalterBright 12y ago
  I agree, syntax does matter. A program should look good on the page. It's much more satisfying to write code in a language that you can craft in an eye-pleasing manner.

kolev 12y ago

Please, don't compare Swift to Go! Swift is as elegant as D is, but not multi-platform yet, so, it's a "no go" for now.