Re: Use of punctuation in a language?

Robert A Duff wrote:


> I don't like languages with significant end-of-lines, because you
> inevitably end up needing to write something longer than a physical line
> (on a piece of paper, or in a window), and then you need some kludgery
> to say "this particular end-of-line is not a terminator".


BCPL had this right. Newline ended a statement unless the parser was
in a state where it needed more tokens in which case the newline was
ignored.


So
      a := b + c +
                d


is fine, but
      a := b + c
                + d


would give an error.


Leaving a trailing operator at the end of the line is very simple to
learn, and is also a good visual cue that the expression needs to
continue.


Yet another good thing that was lost in the transition via B to C :-(
(others including valof ... resultis, endcase etc...)


--
-- Jim


James Cownie <jcownie@etnus.com>
Etnus, LLC. +44 117 9071438
http://www.etnus.com

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