26 programming languages in 25 days, Part 2: Reflections on language design
> even in languages where a [...] } was needed, the indentation always predicted where it would have gone anyway.> if I were to design a [...] language, it would push me toward indentation-sensitivity.> That’s a notable shift from my prior perspective, where> I felt that whitespace-insensitivity was preferrable to indentation-sensitivity.I'm starting to have the same change of perspective for a different reason: widespread use of formatters.
One of the drawbacks of white-space sensitivity is the accidental mixing of distinct white-spaces (e.g., tabs and spaces). Using a formatter eliminates this problem because all white-spaces are normalized.