Comment by redbar0n

what I don't understand is why not have these abbreviations as snippets (text expansions) in the IDE, instead of language primitives?

So that the primitives match what people are familiar with from before, and match the actual web standards/specifications.

So that code which is reproduced and communicated online is also immediately readable for people who are not familiar with the abbreviations.

To gain adoption, reducing onboarding friction is key, and judging from my impression of Imba, as well as others' comments here, I think a lot of that unnecessary friction could be reduced.

On the other hand, if pros like reading very terse code, maybe an IDE plugin could be made to toggle the abbreviations.