Re: Short function definition syntax; thoughts on Lua

[Cosmin Apreutesei <cosmin.apreutesei@...>]

> The one thing that really struck me about Lua is that Lua programs looks
> like Lua.  They don't go fancy-syntax fishing elsewhere.  That's kind of
> unusual for a script language nowadays.

Some of that comes form its liberating semantics, but there's also
some crafted screen aesthetics going on which many dynamic languages
seem to overlook, and nice to see them in Lua:
 - good interleaving of keywords with symbols (contrary to perl,
haskell or the mathematical notation, more likely designed for the
chalkboard or paper)
 - good interleaving of whitespace with letterspace (unlike
curly-brace languages)
 - economic use of symbols, choosing those that look good on the
screen and are easy to type (eg. look at the conversation about
choosing a length operator some years ago)

I think the impact on these qualities should be evaluated when asking
for more syntax sugar especially if it includes new symbols :)