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That's not the syntax, that's just the ASCII representation. The syntax, which is what you get when the Toolbox presents your spec in pretty-printed form, is:

  * ∀ p ∈ people
  
  * acc = [p ∈ people ↦ 5]

  * ≠ for inequality

  * ∧ for and

  * seq1 ∘ seq2 for append
That's fairly standard mathematical notation. In fact, one of the things I enjoyed about TLA+ is that I didn't really need to learn the syntax, as it's so standard. Even the non-standard bits (like alignment that can replace parentheses) are quite intuitive.

And if you say, well, I still have to type the ASCII, then you're missing the point. Specifications are not internet rants where you dump a lot of characters on the screen. They are usually quite short, and you spend nearly all your time thinking or reading them.



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