[silentbicycle]

Indeed. Ugly syntax is such an obvious thing to complain about, but ugly semantics and ugly design are a bigger problem in the long run. (I really like Erlang's programming model, but find the syntax a bit scruffy.)

Erlang's syntax seems a lot less weird if you're familiar with Prolog, FWIW. It was a originally a DSL built on top of SICSTus Prolog, but seems to have accumulated some extra syntax along the way. Same with a lot of its other quirks.

[davidw]

Yes, Erlang's syntax is something you can still complain about a little bit even after having gotten comfortable with it. It's just not one of the language's strong points in my opinion. Of course, for a competent programmer, it's nothing more than a minor annoyance and is no reason not to use Erlang for projects where it would be a good fit.