I also prefer fewer options. I believe having too many options can actually make it more difficult to learn a language, since it raises expectations for some tokens that can't be met by others. Learn one, use it, move on.
Slight case of cognitive dissonance there @FourthWorld?After 25 years of habits, if you take my abbreviations away I'll scream.
I remember suggesting many years ago the prospect of removing abbreviations (such as btn etc.) on the improve-list (as it was then) - it was a contentious suggestion then, and I suspect still will be today amongst our existing user-base.
The reason for removing abbreviations would not be to do with speed, just language cleanliness... Indeed, I can pretty much guarantee that had they never been there in the first place, no-one would have suggested adding them.And if you can quantify the speed difference for disallowing my well worn habits my screaming will be that much shorter.
There's no real issue with supporting abbreviations in the new parser, it's more a case of whether they are something which should be phased out.
If the main purpose of abbreviations is to accelerate script input then a better solution would perhaps be a configurable set of auto-expansions at the script editor level.
Anyway, I was mainly just throwing the suggestion out there again to see what the reaction would be - I must confess I'd probably find it somewhat jarring to not be able to type 'the rect of tControl' anymore (although I'd no doubt get used to it); and we can't really justify removing some abbreviations and not others - I think it would have to be either all or nothing.