> a couple of newlines
A couple of newlines to create a new paragraph is semantic whitespace, as one newline or a space would not do so. Markdown (although not HN's Markdownesque syntax) even has significant trailing whitespace, which I would object to in a programming language.
> it's much harder to tell the difference between " " and " ".
Can't think of any scenario where you'd need to.
If you do mix hard tabs with spaces for indentation, which would cause readability issues with other languages anyway, it'll fail to run and point out where.
I can empathize that significant whitespace sounds off-putting at first, but after biting the bullet I think it's definitely a net positive. Indentation indicates my intent yet most languages just ignore it. For example, consider this gotcha across multiple non-significant-whitespace C-like languages:
for (i = 1; i < 11; ++i)
printf("%d ", i);
printf("%d ", i);
Or, alternatively, hunting down one misplaced closing bracket.
Also, with Python appealing to new programmers, there'd probably otherwise be plenty of beginner code with no indentation at all.
A couple of newlines to create a new paragraph is semantic whitespace, as one newline or a space would not do so. Markdown (although not HN's Markdownesque syntax) even has significant trailing whitespace, which I would object to in a programming language.
> it's much harder to tell the difference between " " and " ".
Can't think of any scenario where you'd need to.
If you do mix hard tabs with spaces for indentation, which would cause readability issues with other languages anyway, it'll fail to run and point out where.
I can empathize that significant whitespace sounds off-putting at first, but after biting the bullet I think it's definitely a net positive. Indentation indicates my intent yet most languages just ignore it. For example, consider this gotcha across multiple non-significant-whitespace C-like languages:
Or, alternatively, hunting down one misplaced closing bracket.Also, with Python appealing to new programmers, there'd probably otherwise be plenty of beginner code with no indentation at all.