Graphic Design for Languages

I'm a very visual person. My first attempt at writing a programming language was 100% visual - with flow-chart-like diagrams. The reality, though, is nothing is more concise than language for expressing code. However, I still believe strongly in the visual design of a language. We read 100 times more code than we write. Therefore, designing a language to be read is extremely important. One aspect of achieving that, is using the principles of graphic design:

• alignment
• contrast
• proximity
• repetition
• white Space

source: 5 Basic Principles Of Graphic Design You Take For Granted Everyday

Example

# JavaScript
#  not aligned: some brackets ({}), colons (:), close-quotes("), some commas (,)
#  inconsistent repetition: trailing comma (,)
fields = {
  mediaAspectRatio:   {type: "short",   index: true  },
  mediaUrl:           {type: "keyword", index: false },
  mediaByteLength:    {type: "integer", index: false },
  mediaFocus:         {type: "object",  index: false },
  mediaColorInfo:     {type: "object",  index: false },
  mediaDimensions:    {type: "object",  index: false }
};

# CoffeeScript - better opportunities for alignment
#  not aligned: colons (:), close-quotes("), commas (,)
fields =
  mediaAspectRatio:   type: "short",    index: true
  mediaUrl:           type: "keyword",  index: false
  mediaByteLength:    type: "integer",  index: false
  mediaFocus:         type: "object",   index: false
  mediaColorInfo:     type: "object",   index: false
  mediaDimensions:    type: "object",   index: false

# CaffeineScript - great opportunities for alignment
#  not aligned: colons (:)
fields =
  mediaAspectRatio:   type: :short      index: true
  mediaUrl:           type: :keyword    index: false
  mediaByteLength:    type: :integer    index: false
  mediaFocus:         type: :object     index: false
  mediaColorInfo:     type: :object     index: false
  mediaDimensions:    type: :object     index: false

Alignment

Alignment-oriented features enhance both reading and editing. Together with editors that let you do column-based editing (like SublimeText), CaffeineScript's optional-commas make it trivial to add the extra "index" field to the end of every item in the fields object.

Contrast and Noise

In a programming language, I think of contrast as being the signal-to-noise ratio. How much information content does a line of code convey for a given set of symbols? JavaScript has a considerably lower signal-to-noise ratio, i.e. a great deal of information redundancy.

Proximity

TODO - thoughts:

• &StreamlinedRequires are so elegant they can often be used directly in the exact place they are used, improving proximity
• Auto-variable-definition tends to favor proximity - no need to place declarations somewhere up above in the source-code

Repetition

Inconsistent Repetition Example: From the Alignment example above: In JavaScript, arrays, object literals and function arguments require inner-commas. When placed one per line, this means the last line must not have an end-comma. This makes reading slightly harder because it's more information for the brain to process. But more significantly, it makes edits like changing the order of a list significantly more difficult and error-prone.

Whitespace

TODO - thoughts:

• CaffeineScript white-space has meaning, but it is designed to be structured, simple and consistent
  • Blocks instead of Brackets
  • Binary Line Starts
• Less symbol-noise, means white-space has more gravity - by contrast. Therefore, a few extra spaces can go much further to contrast two parts of code by creating some separation - via whitespace.