Comment by xigoi
5 hours ago
> Also my main objection to Lisps is still the horrible bracket syntax. Yes it's unambiguous and easy to parse, but it's HORRIBLE to read and edit.
I use Parinfer, which allows me to edit Janet as if it was an indentation-based language.
Yeah I mean I guess if you have to use that syntax, it's nice to have a better editor for it. But IMO the existence of that tool clearly demonstrates that the syntax is pretty bad.
All C-derived languages (e.g. Java and Rust) have a bad syntax, with tons of superfluous parentheses and many other superfluous tokens, like semicolons or commas.
This normally matters very little, because a good editor will always insert a complete template whenever you type something like "if", "for", "while" etc.
Most programmers are blind to the syntax defects with which they are accustomed and they notice only the syntax defects with which they are unfamiliar.
I would prefer a language with a good syntax, but unfortunately which programming languages have survived in widespread use has a poor correlation with the technical qualities of a language and especially a really negligible correlation with how good its syntax was.
Most editors manage your indentation, parentheses and braces for you. Not sure how that is a unique marker for lisp style languages.