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From: ralphw@mit-eddie.UUCP (Ralph W. Hyre)
Newsgroups: net.lang.mod2
Subject: Aren't people fed up with semicolons yet?
Message-ID: <4003@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 10-Apr-85 18:36:32 EST
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.4003
Posted: Wed Apr 10 18:36:32 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Apr-85 02:45:41 EST
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 13

Has anyone though of trying to see what would happen to modula-2 syntax if
semicolons were optional, as in CLU?  (CLU is a stongly typed language 
developed at MIT from 1974 to 1978, more or less the same period when Modula-2
was being developed.  CLU is designed to support data abstraction and 
modularity, and achieves this through the mechanism of CLUsters, which roughly
correspond to Wirth's modules.  (Clu stores all objects on a heap, so the
programmer isn't burdened with storage allocation responsibilities.)

I just seems strange that one language (CLU) would not require explicit
terminators but another (Modula-2) would.  After all, compilers can be
made smart enough to allow humans to type fewer superfluous symbols.

					- Ralph