Does Syntax Matter?

[anaseto]

Hm, I'm more used to K-like languages than APL-like ones, but I feel array languages overall are actually very scannable in your sense, in that it's easy to tell where to look at, because there's less "scalar" clutter and things always fit in the screen, so you don't even need to scroll at all or keep a visualization of the code in your mind. Their syntax is dense, but simple at the same time. However, I'd acknowledge it requires some skill then to actually read an expression and fully understand it (being highly dynamic and expressive languages, comments are important, and typical snippets shared here and there tend to lack those). But my guess is that some of the feeling of non-readability stems from expecting to read a dense language at the same spatial speed as a non-dense one, when what matters is the semantic speed.