Fortress is a new programming language from Sun Research. It claims to be trying to take over the Fortran mantle of being a programming language for mathematicians and scientists. It has plenty of interesting stuff, including complex rules for how to richly present Fortress source code, so that the programs can be displayed as complex mathematical texts.
But perhaps the most unusual thing in the specification was this:
Forbidden and Discouraged Characters
Except within a comment (see Section 3.3), the use of CHARACTER TABULATION (U+0009) is forbidden in a Fortress program (even within a string literal, where an escaped sequence is provided instead).
That’s right, folks! No tab characters in the source code, they are forbidden. Will this end the tabs-vs-spaces debate, or simply enrage one side?
Comments
At least two years back I already heard of it, and that was by a co-worker wo said he'd heard of it a while back still.
The usage of mathematical notation in the language is interesting. This didn't work very well years ago when APL tried it. How exactly am I supposed to type α β ≡ Σ...?
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