It's such a lot of effort to make a language like this. I don't get why they don't just put in like 2% more effort and add syntax that makes it less awful for humans. Nobody really wants to write `[* 5 5]` do they?

  [fn square [x] [* x x]]

Could very easily be

  fn square(x) = x * x;

Or something like that, which is much more readable.

Also

> Hindley-Milner inference eliminates type annotations.

I think it's pretty widely agreed at this point that global type inference is a bad idea. The downsides outweigh the upsides. Specifically: much worse errors & much less readable code.

▲ mapcars 2 hours ago | parent [-]

You never used lisp-like languages did you?

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drob518 10 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

There’s no use arguing. As the ancient Lisp proverb says, when the programmer is ready, the parens will disappear. Until then, you’re just wasting your breath.

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IshKebab an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

No because the syntax is so awful. Programming languages are consumed by machines but written by humans. You need to find a middle ground that works for both. That's (one of the reasons) why we don't all program in assembly any more.

Lisp and similar are just "hey it's really easy to write a parser if we just make all programmers write the AST directly!". Cool if the goal of your language is a really simple parser. Not so cool if you want to make it pleasant to read for humans.

	▲	TheFlyingFish 5 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I've never used a Lisp either, but I get the impression that "forcing you to write the AST" is sort of the secret sauce. That is, if your source code is basically an AST to begin with, then transforming that AST programmatically (i.e. macros) is much more ergonomic. So you do, which means that Lisp ends up operating at a higher level of abstraction than most languages because you can basically create DSL on the fly for whatever you're doing. That's my impression, at least. Like I said, I've never actually used a Lisp. Maybe I'm put off by the smug superiority of so many Lisp people who presume that using Lisp makes them better at programming, smarter, and probably morally superior to me.