> On Jul 22, 2019, at 14:16, Dexter Lagan <dexterla...@gmail.com> wrote: > > A parens-less Racket2 would become Crystal.
No it won’t. I am quite confident that Racket with any syntax will not be like any other language that currently exists. What other language has Racket’s advanced, robust compile-time metaprogramming support, its higher-order contract system, its #lang mechanism (applied to great effect in technologies like Scribble and Typed Racket), its language-as-an-operating-system support for runtime sandboxing and introspection, and its featureful and extensible FFI, among many other things? To say that Racket is so defined by its syntax that it will cease to be distinguishable from any other language if it is changed is absurd, and it’s frankly insulting to all the people who have put so much effort into every part of Racket. If you believe Racket’s syntax is its most important feature, and that everything else that sets it apart from other languages is pragmatically irrelevant, I can’t really argue with that. I disagree, but it’s a matter of opinion. That said, that kind of criticism isn’t very constructive, since I don’t know how to interpret it beyond “I really like parentheses,” which is hardly actionable or debatable. I make no claims of representing the will of PLT, so I could be wrong, but I think discussing what about s-expressions you like—and what about other syntaxes you dislike—is on-topic and can produce constructive discussion. But although it’s possible I didn’t read it carefully enough, the link you provided doesn’t seem to have much in the way of that sort of explanation… it seems to focus on how to most usefully take advantage of s-expressions, but it doesn’t compare them to other formats. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Racket Users" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to racket-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/racket-users/9AA3072F-1688-4424-B911-3C0190622661%40gmail.com.
