>If it was bad, it wouldn't have become the way to communicate with people in every culture on the planet.
That's because the vast majority of social situations are very tolerant of misunderstandings and have lots of redundancy/repetition to ensure that communication occurs successfully.
In cases where misunderstandings can be significant, we turn to more formal modes of communication. Scientific literature, technical manuals, and legal documents are all more stilted than regular prose for the simple reason that they need to clearly and unambiguously communicate their contents. Reader enjoyment is a secondary consideration.
Programming languages need to be even clearer than legal or technical documents, because they're being read by a machine rather than another person. As such, I see ambiguity in programming languages as even more of a sin than ambiguity in contracts and scientific papers.
That's because the vast majority of social situations are very tolerant of misunderstandings and have lots of redundancy/repetition to ensure that communication occurs successfully.
In cases where misunderstandings can be significant, we turn to more formal modes of communication. Scientific literature, technical manuals, and legal documents are all more stilted than regular prose for the simple reason that they need to clearly and unambiguously communicate their contents. Reader enjoyment is a secondary consideration.
Programming languages need to be even clearer than legal or technical documents, because they're being read by a machine rather than another person. As such, I see ambiguity in programming languages as even more of a sin than ambiguity in contracts and scientific papers.