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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!harpo!decvax!mcvax!steven
From: steven@mcvax.UUCP (Steven Pemberton)
Newsgroups: net.lang
Subject: Re: Lexical analyzers and parsers
Message-ID: <5793@mcvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 26-Apr-84 13:43:14 EST
Article-I.D.: mcvax.5793
Posted: Thu Apr 26 13:43:14 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 27-Apr-84 06:14:38 EST
References: <2361@ecsvax.UUCP> <398@opus.UUCP>
Organization: CWI, Amsterdam
Lines: 15

> Curiously [in FORTRAN], it was decided to ignore blanks,
> EVEN within identifiers.

I don't find this at all curious, but in fact eminently reasonable.
Many, maybe most, identifiers in the real world contain spaces,
so why not include it in programming languages?
For instance my identifier (Steven Pemberton) contains a space.
I don't find StevenPemberton or Steven_Pemberton or whatever
any more readable.

There's much discussion about how best to represent spaces in identifiers in
programming languages, but I frankly find the FORTRAN/Algol way of just using
spaces the best.

Steven Pemberton, CWI, Amsterdam; steven@mcvax.