Apology for top post, but this is a general statement about Readability and not a response to an individual.
it would be nice to list the objective parts separate from the "argument" (i.e. debate, not fight), perhaps list them then make a case for which metric is a more important, and which values produce better results.
Key strokes, keyboard location, location of information vs where it is used, cognitive load (objective barring neuroscience changes) are all objective points (along with many other points raised).
"Better" will be decided by Guido I guess, but listing objective points with explanatory examples gives a basis for that discussion.
Legibility, for example, is not objective at all, it has nothing to do with syntax. This covers fonts, colors, monitors, lighting, chairs, lunch, etc. None of this is relevent to the symbols or their ordering in a file we all must read.
Teachability likewise. My opinion here is learnability is far more important anyways, I am 90% self taught going back 25 years, but this is equally unquantifiable. Perhaps just trust students to learn as an author must trust a reader.
Of course, let it not be lost that determining teachability and learnability for something which doesn't even exist yet is quite challenging.
Any quantification will give more information than only naked impassioned pleas to Readability.
Note Tim came up with a real metric:
2 * count(":=")/len(statement).
It's objective. it's just unclear if a higher score is better or worse. However, one could say "a Tim of .3 is considered too high" as a guideline.
Perhaps coders find these opportunities to express feelings and opinion cathartic after speaking to the most pedantic creature on Earth (compilier/computer) but I think exercising the high skill level available here to dissect and find objective statements is a worthy puzzle.