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Discussion on: Why are you learning Elm?

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_gdelgado profile image
Gio

But I hated the syntax

That's bikeshedding, my friend!

Some people like it, some people don't. But should your like or dislike of syntax impact your decision to adopt a language? Not if the distinction between syntaxes doesn't impact productivity, learning curve or other objective criteria.

The syntax is (mostly) unimportant (see point above). It's like telling someone you don't agree with them because of the sound of their voice. It's super subjective. As as engineers, we shouldn't be swayed to make decisions based on subjective criteria!

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dwayne profile image
Dwayne Crooks

On point.

I feel the same way as well, i.e. syntax is mostly unimportant. It is the least important part of choosing a programming language.

However, I didn't feel that trying to convince any random person on the internet of that was worth my time so instead I tried to empathize with him because, let's face it, we've all been there (i.e. hating syntax) at one point or another.

It's interesting to note though that in the history of mathematics notation (i.e. syntax) has always been an issue:

  1. We took Leibniz's notation over Newton's for calculus. ref
  2. We dropped Frege's notation for something more convenient. ref
  3. And on and on.

But we always accepted the underlying ideas and concepts when we deemed them worthy of consideration.