That sounds like an imaginary non-problem. In such an extreme case, the APL developer would just have to put up with that line broken into 10 lines maybe. Just configure his editor accordingly (maybe to move through text like there are no newlines except some condition or whatever - if you use an "exceptional" syntax waaay different from all the others, it's your problem to hack your Emacs/Atom whatever to handle it for your need!). And btw, you could also have an autoformatter like goftm that will break down that line of APL by a condition like "should not exceed maximum line length in any taxes", whether you like it or not, might even avoid having a conversation altogether.
Even if one of the syntaxes is not text based, maybe even a "syntax that involves arranging blocks in 3D space with a VR headset" or whatever, people could still agree on sensible defaults.
Only issue I'd see might be with open source projects, where you could add a guideline like "please reformat your code so that it looks good in syntax X according to styleguide X-42 or your pull request will not be accepted". Yeah, the conversations might become less democratic, with some "style dictator" needing to push "the right rules" down right every contributors throat to prevent endless bikeshedding, but it could work.
If we'd give of some of this crap "style democracy" and have a few more authoritarian rules, we could instead enjoy multiple syntaxes easily. The ol' "more freedom under tyranny" paradox that people always seem to (like to) forget it actually works, and could work well to code too.
Even if one of the syntaxes is not text based, maybe even a "syntax that involves arranging blocks in 3D space with a VR headset" or whatever, people could still agree on sensible defaults.
Only issue I'd see might be with open source projects, where you could add a guideline like "please reformat your code so that it looks good in syntax X according to styleguide X-42 or your pull request will not be accepted". Yeah, the conversations might become less democratic, with some "style dictator" needing to push "the right rules" down right every contributors throat to prevent endless bikeshedding, but it could work.
If we'd give of some of this crap "style democracy" and have a few more authoritarian rules, we could instead enjoy multiple syntaxes easily. The ol' "more freedom under tyranny" paradox that people always seem to (like to) forget it actually works, and could work well to code too.