Re: keywords and identifiers..

Jerry Leichter <jerrold.leichter@smarts.com> wrote:


>| > Are there languages which allow a keyword to be
>| >accepted as an identifier.
>|
>| Yes, most of the old (incomprehensible) languages did that (like PL/1
>| i think but i'm not sure, i'm not very used to obsolete languages)....
>
>Ah, so modern languages like C are "comprehensible"? Perhaps you should
>spend some time looking at the submissions to the Obfuscated C contests.
>
>Everyone loves to give PL/I examples like:
>
> IF IF = THEN THEN THEN = ELSE ELSE ELSE = END END
>
>[Actually IF IF = THEN THEN = ELSE; ELSE ELSE = END; END -John]


          Well, no. PL/I does have a THEN in its THEN clause, so
                    IF IF = THEN THEN THEN = ELSE; ELSE ELSE = END; END;
Insertions: ^^^^ ^


[Oops, you're right -John]


>(which I think is valid PL/I - it's been years, but it's at least close)


          It has been years for me, too, and they're far away years, too.
They can stay that way.


>but that simply proves that you *can* write incomprehensible code in
>PL/I. So? Show me a language in which you *can't* write incomprehen-
>sible code.


          No such critter, but there are some spectacular examples at the
other extreme.


[snip]


Sincerely,


Gene Wirchenko

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