Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Syntax Matters...?

smallcultfollowing.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 44 posts

Re: Syntax Matters...?

#11

Post by kibwen »

vidarh wrote: post #7

Frankly, I've stopped using languages, or lost interest in learning languages, entire over "small" syntax issues. Syntax is a bigger potential deal-breaker to me than functionality in many cases - I spent many times more time reading code than molding my mental model of what I want to do into something I can write down as code in a particular language. If I can't read and scan code quickly, the language is dead to me…

I empathize. I have a hugely hard time reading code, which is why I tend to use Python wherever I'm able (and even Python's a bit hard for me to read, but it's certainly better than most).

However, I also think it's a little sad to limit your selection of languages strictly due to syntactic concerns, without any consideration of features whatsoever. Some languages that are utterly unreadable (I'm looking at you, Haskell! Like trying to eat soup with your hands tied behind your back) have some really cool concepts that, if nothing else, are great to poach for your own favorite language (list comprehensions spring to mind).

Re: Syntax Matters...?

#12

Post by beothorn »

The smalltalk difference is not just syntax. Smalltalk uses messages instead of function calls. It's a different concept because smalltalk object can handle messages that are not declared on the class body. If you changed the parameters order it would be a different message, and you would not have a compile error, because it would still be possible to an instance to answer that message.

Re: Syntax Matters...?

#13

Post by barrkel »

scott_s wrote: post #3
barrkel wrote: post #2

It is important, however, to distinguish between syntax and expressiveness. I don’t care (too much) whether you write function(x) { ... }, \x -> ... or { |x| ... } to denote a closure, but there had better be a way to write a closure somehow! (Java, I’m looking at you here) Java is the refutation, IMO: it does have a way to express a closure, it's just that the syntax (anonymous class) is laborious. You need to wrap…

I think you're abusing the word "syntax." I think there is a difference between being able to implement the same functionality of an abstraction, and having direct language support for that abstraction. I don't think it's accurate to say that Java has clunky syntax for closures. Rather, I think it's more accurate to say that Java has no concept of closures. If you want that functionality, you need to roll your own su…

Anonymous classes use lexical closure to capture names in the outer environment. The feature that Java lacks is not so much closures, as first class functions (which you can have without closures). Defining a method which binds to lexically enclosing symbols, and when evaluated has access to an environment mapping these symbols to values, seems to me to be possible in Java. It's just that the method needs to be contained in a class.

Re: Syntax Matters...?

#14

Post by ajross »

scott_s wrote: post #8
ajross wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But isn't that abuse of the word "concept"? The same logic would argue that C has no concept of a string, or that lisp has no concept of an object (despite lots of text handling and OO code being written in both languages). Not every "closure" works the same, even between languages that support things called "closures" and use them in roughtly the same way. Anonymous Java classes are clearly a related concept, and in…

I would argue that C has no concept of a string: there is no direct support in C (or C++, for that matter) for concepts related to strings. They are just arrays that happen to contain characters. All of the strigyness of those arrays exists solely in the mind of the programmer. C itself does not help you any. That is, I think, the hallmark of a language level abstraction: does the language allow you to think of the e…

Fair enough. Then I suspect we'll just have to agree to disagree here. To me, that's a near-meaningless semantic distinction. Language concepts are squishier in my mind.

Re: Syntax Matters...?

#15

Post by kibwen »

ajross wrote: post #5
scott_s wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're abusing the word "syntax." I think there is a difference between being able to implement the same functionality of an abstraction, and having direct language support for that abstraction. I don't think it's accurate to say that Java has clunky syntax for closures. Rather, I think it's more accurate to say that Java has no concept of closures. If you want that functionality, you need to roll your own su…

But isn't that abuse of the word "concept"? The same logic would argue that C has no concept of a string, or that lisp has no concept of an object (despite lots of text handling and OO code being written in both languages). Not every "closure" works the same, even between languages that support things called "closures" and use them in roughtly the same way. Anonymous Java classes are clearly a related concept, and in…

I'm not sure we can make a distinction here; since it's possible to use any Turing-complete language to augment itself (if necessary, in the worst case, by writing a new virtual machine for itself in itself), every language, technically, includes every concept. We have to draw the line somewhere, don't we? :)

Re: Syntax Matters...?

#16

Post by mattmanser »

I have real problems reading a large volume of code in certain programming languages. With a lot of code, even if I'm not familiar with the language, I can scan it and understand the broad strokes and what it's doing very quickly.

There are two languages I can't do that with. Javascript and Lisp. For me, Lisp and Javascript's syntax is too sparse. I've even used Javascript for a few days every week for the last 10 years and I still can't 'scan' a large code file. I know how it works, I know how to use it, I know the good parts and all the tricks. But I still dread cracking open a misbehaving Jquery plugin or any home grown, even self-written, non-trivial code base in it.

With both of them it's a laborious process of actually having to load the whole code into my head, to remember what other functions are doing, how things are initialized. Perhaps you can call it laziness, but personally I only 'load' a whole code base into my memory when I'm doing significant work with it. It takes time and effort I don't want to have to put in just to make a tweak.

So not being able to just skim read code is intensely annoying.

And that's down to syntax. So to me syntax does matter and it's why I'll keep railing against javascript being the only available language in the browser. It's not just a matter of preference, it's also a matter of productivity. I at least, and I suspect many others, are not very productive with sparse syntactical languages because they're so hard to skim read.

EDIT: Some people have the gift/skill of memorizing things very quickly. I don't, I have the gift/skill of understanding things very quickly, which generally means I can get away with a weak memory. I think a lot of programmers have one of those two skills, but rarely both. Sparse syntax is a bane for the latter.

Re: Syntax Matters...?

#17

Post by kibwen »

mattmanser wrote: post #16

I have real problems reading a large volume of code in certain programming languages. With a lot of code, even if I'm not familiar with the language, I can scan it and understand the broad strokes and what it's doing very quickly. There are two languages I can't do that with. Javascript and Lisp. For me, Lisp and Javascript's syntax is too sparse. I've even used Javascript for a few days every week for the last 10 ye…

Could you define "sparse"? Perhaps illustrate it with a counterexample in a language that does not exhibit that property.

(Also, have you tried Dart, Coffeescript, or any of the dozens of other languages that compile to Javascript?)

Re: Syntax Matters...?

#18

Post by mattmanser »

kibwen wrote: post #17
mattmanser wrote: post #16

I have real problems reading a large volume of code in certain programming languages. With a lot of code, even if I'm not familiar with the language, I can scan it and understand the broad strokes and what it's doing very quickly. There are two languages I can't do that with. Javascript and Lisp. For me, Lisp and Javascript's syntax is too sparse. I've even used Javascript for a few days every week for the last 10 ye…

Could you define "sparse"? Perhaps illustrate it with a counterexample in a language that does not exhibit that property. (Also, have you tried Dart, Coffeescript, or any of the dozens of other languages that compile to Javascript?)

Sparse in that function can actually mean function, closure, class or class method.

Javascript also suffers from a cowboy layout problem where, for example, the initializer of a class may be anywhere. Most programming languages have established a convention to where it is (the top of the class declaration (e.g. Ruby, Python) or underneath class variables/properties (e.g. Java, C#)).

In Lisp it's even worse as it's not even obvious immediately what is a function or an argument as it's just on the position of the words.

I do keep meaning to give coffeescript a whirl, but feels it solves the symptoms not the underlying cause, so it's not that high on my 'try it' list.

Re: Syntax Matters...?

#19

Post by chc »

kibwen wrote: post #11
vidarh wrote: post #7

Frankly, I've stopped using languages, or lost interest in learning languages, entire over "small" syntax issues. Syntax is a bigger potential deal-breaker to me than functionality in many cases - I spent many times more time reading code than molding my mental model of what I want to do into something I can write down as code in a particular language. If I can't read and scan code quickly, the language is dead to me…

I empathize. I have a hugely hard time reading code, which is why I tend to use Python wherever I'm able (and even Python's a bit hard for me to read, but it's certainly better than most). However, I also think it's a little sad to limit your selection of languages strictly due to syntactic concerns, without any consideration of features whatsoever. Some languages that are utterly unreadable (I'm looking at you, Hask…

Haskell's actual syntax is actually quite readable — I'd say it's maybe second to Python. Where Haskell gets hard to read is in library code with lots of custom operators, where you have to remember the difference between

  **>
  *>
  *>*
  >*>
  >**
But that's not really Haskell's syntax, it's just a combination of libraries with lots of unfamiliar operators.

Re: Syntax Matters...?

#20

Post by jon6 »

Syntax matters for people who are just learning a new language. When I was learning to program I thought about code in terms of the pascal statements I had to write. Now I think about more abstract ideas, about data flow and control flow. I can map those ideas to the language I am using at any given moment but that only came after many years of experience.

On a different note, I have abstained from commenting on Rust's attitude toward keyword names but aside #2 just bothers me. Naming conventions matter and since Rust may possibly become used in the future it may inspire some new generation of users to learn to program. 20 years later they will start writing their own languages and think "Hey, I used 'ret' in Rust and that brings back good memories so I'll just keep using it!". Truly an embarrassing part of hacker culture.

Post reply on HN