Honestly, I get it. The document wants to tell you what's new and different under the hood, not what the language looks like superficially. Code examples don't actually tell you what the language feels like in production. It's kinda like judging a person's character by how they dress.

I would be torn if I had to write intro documentation like this. On the one hand, people demand code examples, but on the other hand, the majority of people reading code examples will nitpick minor pet peeves in the syntax and completely detract from the actual new ideas and concepts that go way beyond just the syntax.

I found the descriptions of the concepts very enlightening and I honestly think they gave me a better idea of what the language would “feel like” to program in than a code example (or a description of the syntax) would have.

In theory, syntax should be interchangeable. It's conceivable to parse a syntax into an AST and reexpress it in another syntax without changing the AST. In practice, this is not done for many reasons (incl. tooling like diffs) but a big reason is that individual bits and bobs of the syntax are tied to the new concepts in subtle ways. There could absolutely be multiple syntaxes for the same concept, but if the concept is new, even in small and unobvious ways, then no prior existing language’s syntax will map it exactly. For this reason, a code example can't really express the new concept, especially if the syntax is superficially similar to another language that doesn't actually have that concept.

> people reading code examples will nitpick minor pet peeves in the syntax and completely detract from the actual news ideas and concepts

Err, ok, so? Don't be so afraid of criticism, I guess? Yeah, some people will nitpick. I don't see the problem.

> the majority of people reading code examples will nitpick minor pet peeves in the syntax and completely detract from the actual new ideas and concepts that go way beyond just the syntax

I believe that, regardless of our personal preferences, the reality is that syntax is a major criteria for adopting a programming language.

Some people have trouble following Lisp code, and won't touch your project if it looks like chat. Others will have the opposite reaction and have their interest captured instead.

In a way, leading with the core ideas and not with the syntax also shows what this language is about, and selects for people who are more interested in the PL concepts than its looks. After all, syntax is the bikeshed of programming language.

On the homepage, just move the descriptions to the left a bit, and put a big block on the right side where there is some example code that shows off the concepts a bit. It's not like they're struggling for space

Yea but the syntax looks like a mix of Python and JavaScript. By just seeing that I know I don’t want to use it, by seeing the code up front I know that I don’t want to keep reading what ever rationalizations they have to justify the existence of this language.

So by seeing the syntax up front I can save a lot of time because in a world where there are many languages that do the same thing it really boils down to using the one with the syntax that you like the most.