But neither Python nor Java has interesting standard conventions that prevent interesting maintainability programs!

Sorry, I did not understand this sentence. Could you elaborate a bit more?

It's time to reject the idea that maintainability has anything to do with syntax [...]

I do agree with you that people should stop focusing on the syntax when discussing languages. As you have pointed out (above and in other posts) there are other things that are far more important when it comes to maintainability. However saying that syntax does not have anything to do with maintainability is too strong in my opinion. In my opinion the syntax of the language does matter. I am fond of the following quote by Alfred N. Whitehead that says this better than I will be able to do:

By relieving the brain of all unnecessary work, a good notation sets it free to concentrate on more advanced problems, and, in effect, increases the mental power of the race. Before the introduction of Arabic notion, multiplication was difficult, and the division even of integers called into play the highest mathematical faculties.

For example would not the creation of domain specific languages be an example of that syntax/notion matters? Take pattern matching for example. We could express pattern matching directly as finite state machines with states and transition, but the notation for doing so is cumbersome. So instead we use regular expression that are much more expressive, but can be automatically translated into an equivalent state machine. This makes our programs easier to read and to maintain.

That being said, I do wish people would stop focusing on syntax when discussing languages. There are far more interesting and important properties to discuss.

In reply to Re^2: Some thoughts around the "is Perl code maintainable" discussion by oyse
in thread Some thoughts around the "is Perl code maintainable" discussion by oyse

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