> leading parenthesis to begin every expression

well, that's not really what it is doing - it is saying apply this function to these parameters.

In my experience, people simply go "Doh, of course!" or don't write the wrong code in the first place. It has never caused me any real problems.

For those of you that may be curious, or not know C++, in C++ this:

    Obj x();

is a declaration of a function called x that returns an Obj. Whereas this:

    Obj x;

defines (possibly, depending on context) an instance of the type Obj called x.

Most people get over this pretty quickly.

If that is your main complaint about a language then the language doesn't have too many problems. Not that I'm suggesting that C++ doesn't have more serious problems.

I don't think many people would start to use a language unless the found the syntax at least a little simpatico - but I guess they could be drawn by the semantics it provides.