Re:Please tell us what features you'd like in news.ycombinator
by Zak on Saturday July 07, 2007 @02:23PM
(#32969)
>User interface design is surprisingly helpful when designing programming languages.
I don't know why this is surprising (though I don't dispute that most people find it so). I think both Python and Arc pay a lot of attention to this principle, though their philosophies on the subject are quite different. I agree that allowing constants to be called as functions could be a source of bugs. It also seems like it could be, as PG says "quite handy". I'll have to see for myself when Arc is released.
I don't know why this is surprising (though I don't dispute that most people find it so). I think both Python and Arc pay a lot of attention to this principle, though their philosophies on the subject are quite different. I agree that allowing constants to be called as functions could be a source of bugs. It also seems like it could be, as PG says "quite handy". I'll have to see for myself when Arc is released.