[racket-dev] P4P: A Syntax Proposal

I have heard students saying that they did not like Scheme syntax/parans 
even after using it for a whole semester. I really, to this day, haven't 
understood why they did not like parans. But given an option some people
might start liking it/using it. I feel it would be a great idea to have 
P4P as an alternate. 

Hari

----- Original Message -----
From: "Neil Van Dyke" <neil at neilvandyke.org>
To: "Jos Koot" <jos.koot at telefonica.net>
Cc: "PLT Developers" <dev at lists.racket-lang.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 2010 4:44:51 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: Re: [racket-dev] P4P: A Syntax Proposal

Jos Koot wrote at 07/28/2010 04:00 PM:
> With a good editor, like that of DrSceme, pardon me, RdRacket, I experience no difficulty at all with parentheses.

As I believe Shriram said, the problem is the *perceptions* of people 
who think that parens are bad, not whether parens are actually bad.

For decades, Lisp people have been saying "Try parens!  You'll like 'em 
once you try 'em!" but that argument has not been as persuasive as we 
might've hoped in getting people to try.

Regarding P4P, I have no real opinion on whether offering people a 
parens-free syntax is a good idea, so long as people who wish to use 
parens are not somehow marginalized somewhere along the line.

-- 
http://www.neilvandyke.org/

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