Re: Semicolons (Re: Low-Rent Syntax)

In article <2753@sequent.cs.qmw.ac.uk>, liam@cs.qmw.ac.uk (William Roberts) writes:
> [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]


I find it much easier to deal with semicolon-as-separator (actually
semicolon-as-sequence-operator) if I use a coding convention I first
noticed in a E. Dykstra paper:


While somesuch_boolean
         begin
             statement_1
         ; statement_2
         ; statement_3
         end


While I find this easy for me, and find the idea of
semicolon-as-sequence-operator very helpful, I don't dare use it in any real
code because the next poor sod will probably have no idea what I'm up to!
--

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