Re: Semicolons (Re: Low-Rent Syntax)

In article <2753@sequent.cs.qmw.ac.uk> you write:
[agreeing with liam@cs.qmw.ac.uk]
>[I have seen many reports that the semicolon as separator, as in Algol 60
>and Pascal, is much harder to get right than the semicolon as terminator,
>as in PL/I and C. -John]


The people at the math department of the Eindhoven University of Technology
claimed that this was because everybody _wrote_ semicolons as terminators.
They said that in a language with semicolon separators one should not write


S1;
S2;
S3


but


  S1
;S2
;S3


I tried this with some Algol 60 programs, and my experience is that it looks
funny for a day or so, but after that you won't have any problems with
forgotten or extra semi's (you may have other problems :-)


Comment1: Accidentely forgetting to insert a semi when you add a statement at
the _top_ is also visually obvious:


  S0
  S1
;S2
;S3


Comment2: I never bothered to find out who invented this convention, so I
can't give proper credit.


Rob Carriere, rob@kaa.eng.ohio-state.edu
"De semicolonius non est disputandum" :-)
[Ugh. I rest my case. - John]
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