Because there are extra mental operations involved in translating what the code does to what you think/know it does.
We all learn a natural language and its grammar, and use it daily. It's very important for a machine language to be as cognitively compatible with a natural language as possible (aka readability), because that is extremely important for productivity.
p.s. The above is particularly relevant to Python, because it (justifiably) prides itself on its emphasis on readability. To me, even though Python is 5 to 30 times slower than Java, it holds the keys to the future because of its commitment to readability. In the long run, that is the single most important feature of any language - other fundamentals are necessary, but not sufficient to ensure a language's longevity, and can be fixed more easily.
Comments
Because there are extra mental operations involved in translating what the code does to what you think/know it does.
We all learn a natural language and its grammar, and use it daily. It's very important for a machine language to be as cognitively compatible with a natural language as possible (aka readability), because that is extremely important for productivity.
p.s. The above is particularly relevant to Python, because it (justifiably) prides itself on its emphasis on readability. To me, even though Python is 5 to 30 times slower than Java, it holds the keys to the future because of its commitment to readability. In the long run, that is the single most important feature of any language - other fundamentals are necessary, but not sufficient to ensure a language's longevity, and can be fixed more easily.