What would I change about programming language X?

Up: Programming languages

As I’m continually interested in Programming language design, I find it interesting to inspect languages that I like and use often, and see what works and what doesn’t work for me.

This is a series of thought exercises to think through what I would (hypothetically) change.

• What would I change about Ruby?

See also:

• Gripes with Crystal
• Gripes with Go
• Gripes with Smalltalk

To do: JavaScript, Type­Script, Lua, Python

Idea: A series on “What do I like about programming language X” would also be interesting and useful.

The rules

First of all: all proposed changes need to be justified. The justification doesn’t need to be thorough, but it needs to be there.

Furthermore, all proposed changes must work in a variety of situations:

• It must work at any stage of the project: whether it is just starting out as a greenfield project, or a years-old project.

• It must make sense for developers of any seniority: whether junior or senior.

• It must work for projects of any scale: whether just starting out, or a large codebase with hundreds/thousands of files and tens/hundreds of thousands of lines of code.