Whitespace as syntax (was Re: Python Rocks!)

[Paul Prescod]

Thomas Hamelryck wrote:
> 
>...
> 
> Because eyeball retraining can be worth it sometimes. 

That's something you learn after trying a half dozen or so radically
different languages. The average programmer will never come to that
recognition.

And anyhow, you can get most of the benefits of smalltalk from Python,
with a more traditional syntax and most of the benefits of common lisp
from Dylan (e.g.)

> Besides, it did not stop Perl from becoming extremely popular. 

Perl 4 was instantly readable to someone who knew C and awk.

> I never seriously tried out smalltalk because I could not get a good free smalltalk
> implementation, not because of its weird syntax. I still miss a lot of functionality
> in Squeak, but if that is added I will certainly give it a go.

You can't get a good free smalltalk implementation because not enough
programmers want to get involved with the development. That's because of
the smalltalk "reinvent the wheel" attitude and its weird syntax.

-- 
 Paul Prescod  - ISOGEN Consulting Engineer speaking for himself
The great era of mathematical physics is now over; the 300-year effort
to
represent the material world in mathematical terms has exhausted itself.
The
understanding it was to provide is infinitely closer than it was when
Isaac
Newton wrote in the late seventeenth centruy, but it is still infinitely
far
away.
	- The Advent of the Algorithm (pending), by David Berlinski