Asserting that the keyword "def" would confuse beginners is a red herring. Scheme is AFAIK the only language whose variable binding form is _not_ some kind of an abbreviation. C#/JavaScript use "var". Heck, D and C++11 use "auto", which is truly bizzare. "def" is a very common keyword to use for this purpose (Clojure, Scala, Groovy, Java, Ruby - the list goes on). <div> <br></div><div>There are valid arguments against introducing the syntax - Scheme tradition, the abundance of other forms that all include "define", avoiding redundancy, the fact that languages in general do not have a bunch of equivalent keywords for binding variables. But readability/familiarity/understandability is not one of them. I would be flabbergasted if the words {"let", "var", "val", "def", ...} were confusing to any beginner.<br> <br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 4:27 PM, Jukka Tuominen <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jukka.tuominen@finndesign.fi" target="_blank">jukka.tuominen@finndesign.fi</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"> <br> I can't say I like the idea for usability and compatibility reasons.<br> <br> Usability:<br> - Try this idea exaggerated: def lmbd cwcc cdr cond tgt gg param ...<br> Maybe for hard core pros, but this doesn't make the language<br> very approachable for the beginners. I made a few new ones so<br> even the pros could have a taste of it :)<br> <br> Compatibility:<br> - What if I'd like to run the code with a Racket a few<br> versions back? Or even dare to try it with another dialect of scheme?<br> <br> What about using key shortcuts, auto completion, personal mappings<br> or other IDE means to end up having in all above cases identical and<br> therefore compatible source code?<br> <br> br, jukka<br> <div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><br> ____________________<br> Racket Users list:<br> <a href="http://lists.racket-lang.org/users" target="_blank">http://lists.racket-lang.org/users</a><br> </div></div></blockquote></div><br></div>