Re: Indenting vs begin/end

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


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