On Friday, March 21, 2014 14:51:13 H. S. Teoh wrote:
> I'm disappointed about how many discussions revolve around superficial things such as syntax, while neglecting weightier matters such as semantics and expressiveness.

I suspect that a lot of it just comes down to bikeshedding. Syntax is something that pretty much everyone can discuss, whereas semantics get a lot more complicated and require a much greater understanding.

- Jonathan M Davis

On Friday, 21 March 2014 at 21:52:47 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> I'm disappointed about how many discussions revolve around superficial
> things such as syntax, while neglecting weightier matters such as
> semantics and expressiveness.
>
>
> T

http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Wadler%27s_Law

People love to debate syntax. Semantics are much more interesting and worth talking about.

On 03/22/2014 12:47 AM, Frustrated wrote:
>>
>> D syntax is of course less modern than that of Python: Python syntax is
>> 1980s, D syntax is rooted in C syntax which is 1970s. It is an error to
>> equate the quality of a programming language with the age of the base
>> syntax: D and Python are both good programming languages, different
>> agreed.
>>
>
>
> Um, ALGOL was created in the early 60's of which python's spacing scheme
> is based on.

=D.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALGOL#Examples_and_portability_issues

> Just because python came out after C does not change that.
> Do you think it might have been possible that Ritchie learned the
> lessons of ALGOL of which Rossum spat in his face?

No way.

> Some people just never learn from history...
>
> "Python mandates a convention that programmers in ALGOL-style languages
> often follow."
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_syntax_and_semantics#Indentation

Yup. ALGOL-style languages such as D.

On 3/21/14, 11:47 AM, Pedro Larroy wrote:
> Hi
>
> As a newcomer to D, I wonder, how difficult would be and would it be
> welcome by the D community to have D's syntax with significant
> whitespace and without brackets more like python?

Hey Pedro,

I think some (including possibly myself) could enjoy a D dialect with Python indentation quite a bit. Given D's compilation speed, that can be achieved as a dialect without much aggravation by using a preprocessor.

In fact I considered writing such a preprocessor as a running example through the chapters of TDPL, but didn't get around to it.


Andrei

On 3/21/14, 5:18 PM, w0rp wrote:
> On Friday, 21 March 2014 at 21:52:47 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
>> I'm disappointed about how many discussions revolve around superficial
>> things such as syntax, while neglecting weightier matters such as
>> semantics and expressiveness.
>>
>>
>> T
>
> http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Wadler%27s_Law
>
> People love to debate syntax. Semantics are much more interesting and
> worth talking about.

Well, one issue that's happening is that every so often github pull requests that are simple but important (such as documentation) sit there without getting due review. The regular contributors are spending time looking into them, with takes away time from more important issues they could work on.

A dozen people are doing the simple work and the complicated work, while the rest of the forum sits on the sidelines wringing hands about what to do about the future of D.


Andrei

On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 06:47:28PM -0700, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 3/21/14, 5:18 PM, w0rp wrote:
> >On Friday, 21 March 2014 at 21:52:47 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> >>I'm disappointed about how many discussions revolve around superficial things such as syntax, while neglecting weightier matters such as semantics and expressiveness.
> >>
> >>
> >>T
> >
> >http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Wadler%27s_Law
> >
> >People love to debate syntax. Semantics are much more interesting and worth talking about.
> 
> Well, one issue that's happening is that every so often github pull requests that are simple but important (such as documentation) sit there without getting due review. The regular contributors are spending time looking into them, with takes away time from more important issues they could work on.
> 
> A dozen people are doing the simple work and the complicated work, while the rest of the forum sits on the sidelines wringing hands about what to do about the future of D.
[...]

Perhaps we should be talking about how more people can make github contributions instead. ;-)


T

-- 
Why are you blatanly misspelling "blatant"? -- Branden Robinson

On Saturday, 22 March 2014 at 01:47:48 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu
wrote:
> On 3/21/14, 5:18 PM, w0rp wrote:

> A dozen people are doing the simple work and the complicated work, while the rest of the forum sits on the sidelines wringing hands about what to do about the future of D.
>
>
Andrei,

Is there a list of grunt jobs that need to be done?

Steve

On Fri, 2014-03-21 at 18:21 -0700, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote: […]
> I think some (including possibly myself) could enjoy a D dialect with Python indentation quite a bit. Given D's compilation speed, that can be achieved as a dialect without much aggravation by using a preprocessor.
> 
> In fact I considered writing such a preprocessor as a running example through the chapters of TDPL, but didn't get around to it.

I am not convinced. CoffeeScript as a JavaScript dialect hasn't really taken off, people just use JavaScript.

Interestingly a similar thought is on a thread in the Go community: provide a nicer syntax to Go.

-- 
Russel. ============================================================================= Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200   voip: sip:russel.winder@ekiga.net 41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077   xmpp: russel@winder.org.uk London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk  skype: russel_winder

On Saturday, 22 March 2014 at 12:36:17 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:
> I am not convinced. CoffeeScript as a JavaScript dialect hasn't really
> taken off, people just use JavaScript.

Well, that depends on your definition of "taken off". If you were to do a GitHub search, you'd probably find a lot more projects using CoffeeScript than e.g. D. Also, CoffeeScript compiles to JavaScript, so it isn't even an either-or question in first place.

David

On Fri, 2014-03-21 at 23:47 +0000, Frustrated wrote:
[…]
> Um, ALGOL was created in the early 60's of which python's spacing scheme is based on. Just because python came out after C does not change that. Do you think it might have been possible that Ritchie learned the lessons of ALGOL of which Rossum spat in his face? Some people just never learn from history...
> 
> "Python mandates a convention that programmers in ALGOL-style languages often follow."
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_syntax_and_semantics#Indentation

ALGOL60 had begin and end to delimit blocks, the indentation of the block was a visual thing to help readability, just as in C, C++, D. ALGOL60 did not have significant whitespace and an offside rule, just like C, C++ and D don't, whereas Python, OCaml, etc. do.

-- 
Russel. ============================================================================= Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200   voip: sip:russel.winder@ekiga.net 41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077   xmpp: russel@winder.org.uk London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk  skype: russel_winder