TLA+

Raised as a usability problem by 11 people on Hacker News over 9 years (2018–2026), in 8 threads.

People raised many different problems with TLA+, but no single problem has yet been raised by 3 people in 3 different months and threads.

Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.

The newest 12 complaints

Inconsistent syntax, with many operators having alternative spellings2026-07-04
Non-standard, obscure syntax makes the language hard to learn2024-08-29
Model checking run takes unexplained long time with no indication why it stalled2024-04-15
Hard to tell which code was generated and what settings to enter2023-12-14
Hard to find basic features like the translate command without screenshots2023-12-14
Arcane syntax and tooling make specs hard to write and reread accurately2022-02-04
PlusCal variables with apparent local scope actually have global scope2022-02-03
Toolbox no longer starts because of a Java environment incompatibility2022-02-03
Mathematical notation and symbols are hard for programmers; poor debuggability and error messages2021-08-22
Eclipse-based interface was a turn-off; lacks editor support out of the box2021-08-21
Docs split into many linked PDFs in a ZIP, making skimming impossible2020-06-11
Big Eclipse-based IDE is clunky, unfamiliar, and quickly becomes unusable2018-11-02