It goes implied in pg's remark, and my own opinion, that the notation must be good for practitioners. It's of course possible for notation to be plain bad for everyone.
The argument actually says "don't optimize notation for beginners, optimize for practitioners". It doesn't imply making things difficult for beginners on purpose; just that they are not the priority.
I understand that, I read the remark. But you were replying to a comment about Perl, and I want to make it clear that there are plenty of people and languages that make excuses in favor of practitioners when it's convenient and that they shouldn't.
I just don't even think it's a useful remark because you can just claim people you disagree with are beginners and people you agree with are practitioners and now anything can be argued.
I wasn't commenting on perl, in case there's any confusion.
I wouldn't call people who disagree with me on PL design issues beginners. I would call beginners beginners. It's not a matter of disagreeing, it's a matter of experience and time working on real projects with a language.
The argument actually says "don't optimize notation for beginners, optimize for practitioners". It doesn't imply making things difficult for beginners on purpose; just that they are not the priority.