Re: Indenting vs begin/end

Charles Fiterman <cef@geodesic.com>
Mon, 17 Jul 1995 13:10:32 GMT

          From comp.compilers

Related articles
Indenting vs begin/end maatwerk@euronet.nl (1995-07-06)
Re: Indenting vs begin/end rfg@rahul.net (Ronald F. Guilmette) (1995-07-11)
Re: Indenting vs begin/end jpsecher@diku.dk (Jens Peter Secher) (1995-07-12)
Re: Indenting vs begin/end cef@geodesic.com (Charles Fiterman) (1995-07-17)
Re: Indenting vs begin/end nahshon@vnet.ibm.com (1995-07-14)
| List of all articles for this month |

Newsgroups: comp.compilers
From: Charles Fiterman <cef@geodesic.com>
Keywords: design, syntax
Organization: Geodesic Systems
References: 95-07-062 95-07-078
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 1995 13:10:32 GMT

M.M._van_der_Laan <maatwerk@euronet.nl> wrote:
>I am designing a language where end-of-line means end-of-statement
>and where indenting is used instead of begin-end. While this saves
>a lot of typing and prevents the programmer from errors, there are
>a lot of people against it (see 'the semicolon habit' and other
>articles). I can think of two extensions to the language to
>overcome their problems:
>
>- Add a TAB <n> compiler directive to adjust the tab width. This
> allows people to use different settings. Also, when code tends
> to walk off the right side of your screen you could adjust the
> tab setting temporarily to a smaller amount.
> It might also be nice to have your texteditor recognize this
> directive and adjust its own setting accordingly.
>- Add some directive to switch to begin/end statements instead of
> indenting. End of line will still be end-of-statement, however.
> This might also be easier for program generators to generate code.


Let me make a few suggestions.


1) The tab character is misplaced compression. It is also a good
      editor command. It does not belong in programs. This simplifies
      the question of what tab means in a program.


2) Count indentation from the leftmost character of the indented
      material. Thus the meaning of indentation is visually obvious
      and unambiguous. Further changes in the line over indented material
      do not change things (this avoids the Hascall bug)


3) Indented material is a string until something declares otherwise.


if x < y
print
hello world
I love you


Comes out the lexer identical to


if x < y [print [hello world\nIlove you\n]\n]


The if casts the string to code or discards it if it can see it is unused.
This allows


if defined x
print x




if defined x


--


Post a followup to this message

Return to the comp.compilers page.
Search the comp.compilers archives again.