I think typing ergonomics are overlooked as well. CSS has the most verbose syntax for variables I've had to use regularly e.g. `var(--primary-color)` which I find unpleasant to type when experimenting. And I actually like the lack of brackets and commas in OCaml for function e.g. you write `add_numbers 1 2` instead of `add_numbers(1, 2)`. Brackets and commas in particular require you to navigate left/right a lot to add them in the right place while iterating and give confusing errors when you get them wrong.

Would be curious if there's work into a programming language that was optimized for minimal typing while iterating.

> Brackets and commas in particular require you to navigate left/right a lot to add them in the right place while iterating and give confusing errors when you get them wrong.

In other languages, modern IDEs take care of that. For an invocation like `addNumbers(1, 2)`, you would perform code completion after typing “aN”, and the IDE would already fill in matching function arguments from the current scope. The selection (cursor) would be highlighting the first argument, so you can readily replace it. Pressing Tab would move to the next argument. Pressing Enter (or similar) would accept the call expression in the current state and move the cursor behind it. So you only type the actual arguments (if necessary) and otherwise just hit combinations of Tab and Enter, or Ctrl+Space for code completion. You generally don’t type the parentheses or commas yourself.

That being said, I’m in favor of languages with not too much punctuation. But there’s a balance, and too little punctuation can also hurt readability.

Tangentially there is room for optimizing for non-american keyboards.

The accent grave (backtick) you're using in a Markdown-inspired way is utterly annoying to type on keyboards where accents are implemented as dead keys, to be combined with vowels, common on european keyboard layouts. For your example I had to type `, but then look ahead to the a of add_numbers and remember to put in an extra space, so that the ` and the "a" don't combine to an "à".

Also I find it somewhat illogical: The usage of an accent as a character in itself in programming languages is one of my pet peeves. Just being an ASCII character is not reason good enough to keep using it.

Curly or square brackets, backslashes and other stuff also put you into uncomfortable AltGr or Cmd-Shift territory on some keyboards. American language designers are often blind for these simple ergonomics.