Language syntax is like the weather. When it's good (or when you're acclimated to it, I guess) you don't notice it. When the weather is perfect you don't even feel like the atmosphere even exists. When a language is so ingrained in your mental models, you don't even notice syntax, you just see semantics.

A lot of programming is taste, and syntax gives you a very quick judgement about how good the language designer's taste is. How familiar they are with what we know about which syntax works well, and so on. For example if you're designing a language in 2026 that uses `type name` instead of `name: type`... that is highly suspicious.

Also syntax is the interface through which you interact with the language, so bad syntax is going to be something annoying you have to deal with constantly. Sure you'll be able to write good programs in a language with bad syntax choices, but it's going to be less fun.

> Odin’s rules, which are very similar to Python’s, are to ignore newline-based “semicolons” within brackets (( ) and [ ], and { } used as an expression or record block).

Honestly I always thought that was a bit crap in Python and I'm surprised anyone thought this was a sensible thing to copy. Really, just use semicolons. As soon as an "easy" rule becomes even vaguely difficult to remember it's better to bin it and just require explicitness, because overall that is easier.

As Ken Iverson noted in "Notation as a Tool of Thought"[1], yeah the syntax absolutely matters. The same program might resonate and make sense in one language but be incomprehensible if translated 1:1 in another.

Computer languages are for humans to understand and communicate.

1. https://www.eecg.utoronto.ca/~jzhu/csc326/readings/iverson.p...

Syntax is what keeps me away from Rust. I have tried many times to get into it over the years but I just don't want to look at the syntax. Even after learning all about it, I just can't get over it. I'm glad other people do fine with it but it's just not for me.

For this reason (coming from C++) I wished Swift were more popular because that syntax is much more familiar/friendly to me, while also having better memory safety and quality of life improvements that I like.

A languages syntax and its error messages are its user interface. Yes you can have a good tool that you don’t enjoy looking at. You can also have a good tool that’s frustrating to learn because its user interface isn’t clear and doesn’t do what you expect. Can I not hope for something that does what I need, is easy to use, and looks good?

I dislike the “you can change the syntax” argument because that just doesn’t happen. Closest thing is a new languages that compiles to another.