Re: The semicolon habit (was: Q: Definition of a scripting lang.)

> I think the real problem is that we're always trying to boil things
> down to a single mechanism for determining delimiters (e.g. newline
> vs. semicolon.) The right answer, in my mind, is to require both.


Is it?


How about:
C-like is ambiguous and the presence or absence of a semicolon can
change the meaning of a program. Humans are error prone so not surprisingly a
lot of mistakes occur.


One alternative is Wirth-like where the ambiguity has gone and a missing
semicolon where one is needed trips an error, too many semicolons produce no
error and no change in meaning.
The semicolons are in that instance there to help the human read the source
where the redundancy is to help us.


So I suggest the subject is danglies. You accept them, you also accept the
penalty.


    TC.
        E-mail: tchannon@black.demon.co.uk or tchannon@cix.compulink.co.uk


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