Python doesn't have automatic semicolon insertion.
Choosing a language based on its syntax?
11–20 of 111 posts
Re: Choosing a language based on its syntax?
#12Syntax, or how humans perceive the syntax, is only a very small part of the problems when designing a programming language. There is a lot more about how a compiler would handle the syntax (efficiently) and about how the syntax affects actual code and ecosystem.
The recent go blog on error handling should make it clear that syntax is often not worth worrying about. https://go.dev/blog/error-syntax
Re: Choosing a language based on its syntax?
#13Syntax is what keeps me away from Rust. I have tried many times to get into it over the years but I just don't want to look at the syntax. Even after learning all about it, I just can't get over it. I'm glad other people do fine with it but it's just not for me. For this reason (coming from C++) I wished Swift were more popular because that syntax is much more familiar/friendly to me, while also having better memory…
Do you have some examples of what you couldn't get along with? I know this is a lot to ask, but to me while I do write Rust and I don't write C++ or Swift in volume (only small examples) the syntax just doesn't feel that different really.
If you do like Swift you might want to just bite the bullet and embrace the Apple ecosystem. That would be my recommendation I think.
Re: Choosing a language based on its syntax?
#14I like the semantics you type in the google search bar when using it for impromptu calculations. You can use ^ to raise to a power, for example. Just type sin 45. It’s all least surprise.
Re: Choosing a language based on its syntax?
#15Syntax is what keeps me away from Rust. I have tried many times to get into it over the years but I just don't want to look at the syntax. Even after learning all about it, I just can't get over it. I'm glad other people do fine with it but it's just not for me. For this reason (coming from C++) I wished Swift were more popular because that syntax is much more familiar/friendly to me, while also having better memory…
This resonate so much to my relationship with Rust. Also with Go. I'm having hard time learning Rust's advacend concepts because of its syntax.
Strangely enough I find Lisp's parentheses much more attractive.
Re: Choosing a language based on its syntax?
#16I like the semantics you type in the google search bar when using it for impromptu calculations. You can use ^ to raise to a power, for example. Just type sin 45. It’s all least surprise.
I love how it works with units too, eg. c/433MHz or 4 bytes * 20hz * 24 hours
Re: Choosing a language based on its syntax?
#17I like the semantics you type in the google search bar when using it for impromptu calculations. You can use ^ to raise to a power, for example. Just type sin 45. It’s all least surprise.
I love how it works with units too, eg. c/433MHz or 4 bytes * 20hz * 24 hours
Syntactically it probably has a ceiling, to be so casual. Least surprise won’t work for very complex programs. But maybe the programs wouldn’t be so complex if you didn’t have to stick together complex program syntax either.
Re: Choosing a language based on its syntax?
#18Syntax is what keeps me away from Rust. I have tried many times to get into it over the years but I just don't want to look at the syntax. Even after learning all about it, I just can't get over it. I'm glad other people do fine with it but it's just not for me. For this reason (coming from C++) I wished Swift were more popular because that syntax is much more familiar/friendly to me, while also having better memory…
Swift's syntax may look nice, but as soon as you run into "The compiler is unable to type-check this expression in reasonable time; try breaking up the expression into distinct sub-expressions" you'll forget all of that. Hint: they are related.
Re: Choosing a language based on its syntax?
#19Semantics are where the rubber meets the road, certainly; but syntax determines how readable the code is for someone meeting it the first time. Contrast an Algol-descendant like C, Pascal, Java, or even Python with a pure functional language like Haskell. In the former, control structure names are reserved words and control structures have a distinct syntax. In the latter, if you see `foo` in the body of a function d…
I absolutely agree about Haskell (and also OCaml). They both suffer from "word soup" due to their designers incorrectly thinking that removing "unnecessary" punctuation is a good idea, and Haskell especially suffers from "ooo this function could be an operator too!".
Re: Choosing a language based on its syntax?
#20> Lua is an example of such a language, and when a semicolon is necessary is when you have something that could be misconstrued as being a call:
(function() print("Test1") end)(); -- That semicolon is required
(function() print("Test2") end)()
By sacrificing this (mostly unused, in practice) syntactic flexibility, I ended up not needing any sort of "semicolon insertion" logic - we just parse expressions greedily until they're "done" (i.e. until the upcoming token is not an operator).