On Tuesday, 29 April 2014 at 14:01:44 UTC, logicchains wrote:
As someone who only occasionally uses D and Python, I just wanted to add as a datapoint that I find the D compilers an order of magnitude more agreeable than the Python interpreter. The thought that anybody could actually enjoy significant whitespace baffles me.
You must be perpetually perplexed then, because Haskell, Clean, F#, Nimrod and many other languages also use whiitespace to signify indentation.
The argument is roughly like this: if we accept that it would be a good thing if there was a universal indentation/code formatting standard that everyone followed (like gofmt for Go) then punctuation is redundant and the remaining question is whether the added punctuation helps or hinders readability on the whole. I'm guessing you find the lack of punctuation to hinder readability. I find that the opposite is true, and so enjoy reading such code more.
I'm also a frequent user of Python and my main issue with it is the lack of static typing, not the syntax. I'm a rather slapdash coder and I benefit greatly from a type system that gets in my way. The same is true of most Lisps too; I'm fine with the syntax, but I suffer from the lack of static typing.
BTW, there is even a surface syntax for D2, https://github.com/pplantinga/delight, which uses indentation, though I have to say that I dislike the separation of function and procedure a lot.
