[dkersten]

I never did understand this averseness to anything not algol-derived... I personally like Lisps syntax (fuck off, even though it looks different and uses "s-expressions" and code as data and all the rest - ITS STILL SYNTAX) and I like point free syntax and forth-like syntax and prolog intrigues me and ML has interesting syntax too and ...

My point is: ITS JUST SYNTAX! Syntax doesn't define the language, just the look. I do like a nice, clean, concise syntax though.

[omouse]

Syntax does define the language. It's very difficult to write macros for an ALGOL-style language. It's possible but very difficult. Some people are put off by Common Lisp's LOOP macro or the FORMAT function and will try and avoid using the more complex features of them. Those are small examples of how the syntax encourages, or discourages, the use of language features.

Hell, I even hate doing any complex shell scripting because I can never remember the difference between [ ] and [[ ]] and ( ) when using conditionals.