"Syntax is by far the least interesting thing about any new
programming language, but they spend paragraphs talking
about braces and semicolons."
I can't seem to locate the quote for this, but I believe there is a famous witticism on programming languages, which more or less states that arguments about the trivial issues of a language generate the most heated discussion, with syntax being simultaneously the most contentious and the least important.
In any language design, the total time spent discussing
a feature in this list is proportional to two raised to
the power of its position.
0. Semantics
1. Syntax
2. Lexical syntax
3. Lexical syntax of comments
I can't seem to locate the quote for this, but I believe there is a famous witticism on programming languages, which more or less states that arguments about the trivial issues of a language generate the most heated discussion, with syntax being simultaneously the most contentious and the least important.