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by nostrademons 3024 days ago
...that's generally a waste of time.

Once people graduate from the "I'm going to learn ALL the things because it's fun and I got surplus brainpower", they usually discover that there are lots and lots of problems out there that require plenty of brainpower and people will actually pay you for solving. It's somewhat silly to allocate your mental effort to things that get you nothing but intellectual gratification when you can allocate it to things that get you intellectual gratification and monetary compensation that will let you do many things you otherwise can't.
1 comments
AnimalMuppet 3024 days ago
Exactly. I can learn syntax if it's going to pay me back for the effort - if it's going to enable me to avoid bugs, or to solve problems I couldn't, or to be more productive, or to get or keep a job.

Learning syntax that isn't going to pay me back? I don't have time for that.

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rs86 3023 days ago
It takes half an hour to learn syntax
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AnimalMuppet 3023 days ago
It takes a lot longer to learn syntax to the point where I don't have to think about it, so that I can spend my time thinking about the problem instead.

Having to think about the syntax is like not being a touch typist. Sure, I can still press the right keys, but I have to think about doing so, which slows me down and takes my thinking off of what I'm trying to say.

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rs86 3023 days ago
But does coding take more time typing rather than thinking?
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nostrademons 3023 days ago
You've answered your own question about why programmers don't like new syntax. Because most (interesting) coding takes more time thinking than typing, syntax is only a cost, never a benefit. If your language has familiar syntax, then they don't have to pay that cost. If it makes them learn new syntax, it better provide other benefits like access to a new platform, a job that pays much better, or eliminating a large class of bugs. And if two languages both offer that same benefit (like Erlang vs. Elixir, Matlab vs. Python, even Python/Ruby vs. Node.js) programmers will gravitate toward the one that doesn't make them learn new syntax.
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rs86 3022 days ago
People think haskell's or lisp's syntax is bad, but they bring awesome power to solve problems. They are the best languages.
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