[blksv]

I strongly support your point, but the example is still sand-in-the-eyes for me. I hold that one symbol should not alter the semantics of a program and there should never ever be sequences of one-symbol syntactic elements.

In an Ada-like language, it would be something like

  generic
      type Path_Type implements As_Path_Ref;
      type Reader implements IO.File_Reader;
  function Read(Path: Path_Type) return Reader.Result_Vector_Type|Reader.Error_Type is
      function Inner_Read(P: Path) return Read'Result_Type is
      begin
          File:  mutable auto := try IO.Open_File(P);
          Bytes: mutable auto := Reader.Result_Vector_Type.Create();
          try Reader.Read_To_End(File, in out Bytes);
          return Bytes;
      end;
  begin
      return Inner_Read(Path.As_Ref());
  end Read;

[mst]

Huh. My brain says logically I should find that better, but the -lack- of punctuation is making it really tricky to skim read the way I do most languages.

I'm not arguing the example you found sand-in-the-eyes is necessarily good but my mental skim reading algorithm copes with it much better.

[blksv]

It is indeed harder to skim, and I find myself much more relying on syntax highlighting and file outline when working in Ada than in C++. Not due to the lack of punctuation, though, which is in place but serves the guiding role only (it is MLs that tend to abolish all the unnecessary punctuation), but because of the overall dense style.

But while it is harder to _skim_, it is easier to _read_, as you don't have to concentrate on and decipher the syntax, risking to miss some of the crucial elements (oh, how do I hate missing ampersands in C++!).