Like I said, my limited experience makes my opinion of limited interest. I’m 
really only speaking from a practical standpoint, meaning, how a Python or Java 
programmer would see Racket. For example, I have no experience with language 
design, and I only used Racket and Scribble as-is. Most people I talk to use 
Python, Go or Java because of their tooling, and don’t complain about Go’s lack 
of generics.

  I entirely agree with you, Racket is much more than another Scheme, and 
reducing it to its syntax isn’t fair. However, coming from object and 
imperative languages, and looking at Racket’s surface, one wouldn’t suspect 
there’s so much under the hood without digging deeper. It’s quite difficult to 
explain why Racket is so powerful, precisely when people stop at the 
parentheses.

  All that to say, I apologize if I offended anyone, and only wish to suggest 
there might be ways to make Racket more appealing without reinventing the 
wheel. My personal wish list doesn’t contain anything more advanced than what’s 
already there: for my use, faster startup and a slightly more advanced GUI 
framework and editor would be enough.

  What I’m suggesting is that if we want to expose Racket to a broader 
audience, maybe we could start at the bottom and target the more basic users?

Dex

> On Jul 22, 2019, at 4:15 PM, Alexis King <lexi.lam...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> 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.
> 

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