leafo/moonscript — Issue #22: whitespace agnostic mode (begin...end)
Author: i2matrix
Created: 2011-10-22 02:41:51+00:00
State: open

u already know that there is extremely large population which hates python due to its significant whitespace issue, including myself. It just backtracking to 1970s.
"Boo programming language" has two modes- one python inspired syntax (white space significant) and another whitespace agnostic mode

why can't it be offered by you
moon -nowhite file1.moon (using commandline switch OR a switch in API)
can process "begin.. end" blocks to convert them to tabs internally
or still better,
moon file1.moonx (moonx file extension will show that it has to be processed in whitespace agnostic mode) (I WILL PREFER THIS FILE EXTENSION BASED APPROACH)
or, moonx file1.moonx

in api also, if you have parse_code("moon_filename") , then you can extend it as parse_codex("moonx_filename") to deal with whitespace agnostic mode.

but why are you hampering the adoption of your language , just because you want to force people to use the whitespace issue , which is an editor/IDE issue to make it as a language source syntax issue. Still wherever or internet, it is discussed there are always two big camps (python guys and non-python(ruby,lua,groovy,C++,vb.net,C# etc) guys fighting this whitespace issue.

THIS significant whitespace is just plain braindead, we (me , my friends, my colleagues) just can not stand it, it just stinks.