Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!sdd.hp.com!caen!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!ira.uka.de!fauern!opal!fub!math.fu-berlin.de!dww From: dww@math.fu-berlin.de (Debora Weber-Wulff) Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: improve language by dropping ; Message-ID: Date: 22 Feb 91 10:41:26 GMT References: <27@<8507> <21900005@inmet> Sender: news@math.fu-berlin.de (Math Department) Organization: Free University of Berlin, Germany Lines: 81 Now what do I do about statements like a := b + c ? I gotta backtrack over the statement I thought was complete. And how do I express this mathematically? When you write prose (flames, etc.) you use punctuation to show where one thought ends and another one begins, or to set off collections of words to make the sentence less ambiguous. Since programming is (weakly) linked to expressing thought, it shouldn't be too much to ask for you to let the compiler know when a statement is completed, and for you to explicitly mark your blocks. As a side-effect, humans who read your code have a fighting chance of figuring out what you meant. Try finding out (without using a ruler or other aid) to which block the last statement belongs: -- apologize for all the lines, but it has to go off your screen to be effective SEQ x := 1 SEQ x := x + y PAR y := y - 1 x := x - 1 SEQ -- and all kinds of stuff -- -- -- -- -- -- SEQ -- -- -- -- SEQ -- -- -- -- SEQ ALT -- -- -- -- -- -- SEQ -- -- -- -- SEQ -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- PAR -- -- -- -- -- -- Which one? Debbie Weber-Wulff weberwu@fubinf.uucp