Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!ukc!edcastle!aipdc
From: aipdc@castle.ed.ac.uk (Paul Crowley)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: improve world by dropping languages with ;
Message-ID: <8802@castle.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 1 Mar 91 05:35:28 GMT
References: <21733@yunexus.YorkU.CA> <1991Feb22.211643.12151@linus.mitre.org> <1991Feb23.013443.15843@ico.isc.com>
Organization: Edinburgh University
Lines: 22

I spend enough time putting in missed semicolons into programs to like
the idea of a whitespace dependant language.  But I recoil in horror
from some of the consequences.  In particular, there are many software
packages that regard whitespace as fair game.  I wouldn't feel safe
looking at a printout, thinking "maybe that crufty old printer munged
the whitespace, and it isn't that at all."

That's why I want whitespace significance implemented as a pair of
filters.  It's more natural that way anyway, it makes the job of the
compiler easier, and you get to look at code whose meaning has
considerably less scope for uncertainty.  (Uncertainty on my part, not
mathematical (or physical) uncertainty).

Hell, why not please everybody? What's wrong with the best of both
words? It doesn't suffer from the usual difficulty with making something
optional, that being that you only have to write one form but must
understand both, because you can understand one and use one of the pipes
on code in the form of the other.  Me, I'd use both.  "Now, do I tab
that in, or leave it on the same line?  Let's see how it parses it..."
                                         ____
\/ o\ Paul Crowley aipdc@uk.ac.ed.castle \  /
/\__/ Trust me.  I know what I'm doing.   \/