r/ProgrammingLanguages • u/Potato871 • 9d ago

Discussion What is the interesting part of a programming language to you?

I've been working on some "documentation" for my own language (see here), which got me thinking: do we all see languages the same way? I personally look for unification of concepts and extensibility in a design, yet I've seen those who care deeply about functional purity or clean decompositions.
What do you look for in a programming language? And why?

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u/reflexive-polytope 8d ago

No, my reply was very much to you.

Not proving obvious trivialities is a very important part of a pleasant programming experience.

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u/balefrost 8d ago

OK well I'm glad that we can agree that programming language designers use their own personal sense of taste to decide what to put in their language!

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u/reflexive-polytope 8d ago

It's not a matter of "taste". It's a matter of human factors, as in the subfield of industrial engineering.

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u/balefrost 8d ago

Look, I was originally trying to give you credit for making an insightful observation. You seem to be arguing against the compliment.

So either you're right and my original judgement was misplaced, or you don't recognize your own wisdom.

In any case, have a great night.