How is the syntax a step back? Smalltalk is the ultimate orthogonal language - everything is consistent. Famously the Smalltalk grammar fits on a postcard and tells you everything you need to know to understand the system from the source code.

Yeah, I have no idea what shevy-java is talking about either. I would accept “huge step too far”, but not backwards. Unless your belief is that on the 8th day God gave mankind Algol syntax and said “let all languages look like this”. I’ll give that it can feel pretty foreign, like forth, lisp, erlang also do. These languages, imo, all use syntax where the form of the syntax binds nicely, reinforces even, with their computation models.