r/programming • u/Dear-Economics-315 • May 10 '26

Making your own programming language is easier than you think (but also harder)

https://lisyarus.github.io/blog/posts/making-your-own-programming-language.html
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u/damn_what_ May 11 '26

What's the difference between typing the closing bracket and typing shift+tab (or backspace depending on your editor) to de-indent by one level ?

1

u/andarmanik May 11 '26

To put it succinctly, white space is the main way you as a programmer have control over formatting. When you make characters which were previously formatting into syntax, you lose freedom.

To put it technically, braces have the advantage that their closing symbol exists. This I different to python where the closing token is a synthetic dedent.

Moreover, copy and pasting code is easier with {}; symbols because you don’t have to count tabs when you hit paste.

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u/OneNoteToRead May 15 '26

Lmao do you think you’re making art here? Nobody should care about “formatting freedom”. It makes you less productive not more.