[JHonaker]

I never really realized how much syntax matters until I spent a lot time writing Racket.

I’ve learned Haskell, JavaScript (actually learned rather than the passing familiarity I had before), Smalltalk, and APL since then. The hardest part of all of them has been keeping syntax straight.

Things with very regular syntax like Lisps and Smalltalk were a breeze to get comfortable, but a significant portion of my time learning Haskell and APL were spent learning how to parse expressions and precedences in my mind’s eye. There’s definitely a bit of a “reading the Matrix” moment for both of them that you tend to forget after you get it though.

I’m not saying we should stop trying to develop novel syntax either though. Anyone that has ever tried to use the object system in Racket knows just how painful it can be to not have syntactic sugar for something important.

`(send object a-message anyone?)`