You're talking from a position I don't think many would agree with, at all, and I think the responses you're getting are reflecting that.

Syntax is probably one of the single most important things in any language. It matters for writing, but especially for reading.

Bad syntax leads to all kinds of implementation mistakes. It comes with footguns primed ready to go off, probably at the worst possible time. Bad syntax can also make it hard to re-read code and understand what it's doing (especially if the language leans heavily on "magic"), leading to difficulties when troubleshooting, or difficulties when extending existing code.

The more developers you have involved in any project, the more important good syntax becomes, because you all have to be able to read and understand each other's code, and know precisely what is happening. A lot of the bugs that end up in production tend to stem from some disconnect in understanding of the interactions between sections of code.

> Syntax is probably one of the single most important things in any language. It matters for writing, but especially for reading.

That appears to be your position (and maybe even that of a majority of developers), but it apparently isn't the position of the Pony developers. If you have a language in which you can mathematically reason about code (which Pony claims very prominently), then surface concerns such as syntax seem to matter less.

It's a different design goal and it feels like many people in the comments here don't appreciate that.

"I don't think many would agree with"

Aside from this being argumentum ad populum, my upvotes and some of the other comments say otherwise. And I find comments like yours full of strawmen and taking things out of context, to the point where it's simply not worthwhile to debate the substantive points.