Guidelines for creating a programming-language enjoyable to write programs in?

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Published on 2010-05-09T18:18:28Z Indexed on 2010/05/09 18:28 UTC
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I'm currently working on the topic of programming-languages and interpreter-design. I have already created several programming languages but couldn't reach my goal so far:

Create a programming-language which focuses on giving the programmer a good feeling when writing code in it. It should just be fun and/or interesting and in no case annoying to write something in it.

I get this feeling when writing code in Python. I sometimes get the opposite with PHP and in rare cases when having to reinvent some wheel in C++.

So I've tried to figure out some syntactical features to make programming in my new language fun, but I just can't find any.

  • Which concrete features, maybe mainly in terms of syntax, do/could make programming in a language fun?

Examples:

I find it enjoyable to program in Ruby because of it's use of code blocks.

  • It would be nice if you could include exactly one example in your answer
  • Those features do not have to already exist in any language!

I'm doing this because I have experienced extreme rises in (my own) productivity when programming in languages I love (because of particular features).

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