[lug] Fwd: Examining controversy and common sense in programming language syntax

[Davide Del Vento]

Speaking of whitespace and other "trivial" syntax

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: acmqueue <acm_mem6 at hq.acm.org>
Date: Wed, Sep 16, 2020 at 2:34 PM
Subject: Examining controversy and common sense in programming language
syntax
To: davide.del.vento <davide.del.vento at gmail.com>



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Users of different programming languages often disagree on the various
types of syntax. As any programmer knows, each language has its own rules
about how to delineate code blocks, declare variables, and perform various
functionalities.

In "Sanity vs. Invisible Markings
<https://orange.hosting.lsoft.com/trk/click?ref=znwrbbrs9_6-2707ex324ed5x014460&>"
in *ACM Queue*, *George Neville-Neil* (a.k.a. Kode Vicious) addresses a
reader's question about white space in Python. Neville-Neil explains how
syntax rules often date back to the limitations of older computing systems
and why consistency in code signifiers remains important today. He also
opines on how syntax rules should benefit not only the code itself, but the
humans who write it as well.

“If I could change one thing in the minds of all programming language
designers,” Neville-Neil writes, “it would be to impress upon
them—forcefully—the idea that anything that is significant to the syntactic
or structural meaning of a program must be easily visible to the human
reader, as well as easily understood by the systems with which koders write
kode.”

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for engineers, Queue focuses on the technical problems and challenges that
loom ahead, helping readers to sharpen their own thinking and pursue
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