Opportunity missed by Python ?

[Chris Angelico]

On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 10:59 AM, DevPlayer <devplayer at gmail.com> wrote:
> What I don't get is, having seen Python's syntax with indentation
> instead of open and closing puncuation and other -readability-
> structures in Python's syntax, is if someone is going to invent any
> new language, how could they NOT take Python's visual structures (read
> as readability) and copy it, whether it be a compiled language,
> explicidly typed checked or whatever underlying mechanism they want to
> make that code executable.

What I would say is: How could they NOT be aware of Python's visual
structures. There are tradeoffs, and just because something works for
one language doesn't mean it's right for every other. I doubt the Dart
developers were unaware of Python's structural style, so the choice to
not use such was most likely conscious. (It may have been as simple as
"let's keep the syntax mostly JS-like, to make it easier for JS
developers to grok" though, rather than a major language-design
choice.)

ChrisA