On Nov 11, 2013, at 1:07 PM, Greg wrote:

>> I don't think Rust can succeed as a language if it massively differs,
>> visually, from the language it intends to offset (C++).
> 
> Yes, I agree, and that's why I wrote:
> 
>       "By this point, I'm aware that this is unlikely to happen."
> 

...

> However, during those many years, did any of the brains that were involved in 
> designing the syntax seriously consider Clojure's syntax, or Typed Clojure?
> 
> I'm almost certain that the answer is "no" (partly because these 
> languages/dialects did not exist at the time).
> 
> What about Lua, which is more C-like?
> 
> Or CoffeeScript?

Greg, thanks for your comments!

In fact, nearly all of the designers of Rust are deeply familiar with the 
syntactic conventions of these and other languages.  Speaking only for myself, 
I come from Racket, and I'm a strong proponent of fully parenthesized syntaxes.

But! 

Rust is not that language.  As you suggest (and others confirm), that train 
left the station long, long ago. The choice of the Rust team to adopt a 
C++-like syntax was very deliberate, and I'm confident that the members of this 
team still believe that was the right choice.

With that said, though, Rust is a new and exciting language; if you can think 
of improvements, try coding them up and see what you get! In my experience, the 
Rust developers are always happy to hear from volunteers who are excited about 
the language and have concrete pull requests. If you had the energy to build an 
alternate front-end using a parenthesized syntax, I'm sure there are others 
that would give it a try. Me, for instance!

All the best,

John Clements

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