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From: gaynor@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (Silver)
Newsgroups: net.lang
Subject: compound statements
Message-ID: <5281@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Sat, 5-Jul-86 00:43:22 EDT
Article-I.D.: topaz.5281
Posted: Sat Jul  5 00:43:22 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 5-Jul-86 08:48:06 EDT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 71


[SysAdms - for a real laugh, temporarily replace the normal]
[contents of curses.h with strings resembling "$@%^&#!#!!!"]

In many languages, the body of a program or subprogram consists of a
compound statement.  This seems like an arbitrary restriction, and is
quite annoying at times.  Often the action of a program or subprogam
is expressable as a single statement, and I would never otherwise
enclose a single statement within a compound statement.

For example, consider the following piece of pseudo code (feel free to
flame my pseudo, as long as it's followed with ' > /dev/null')
(fellow posters - when giving examples via code, try to produce
something non-trivial; it makes reading the article more interesting):

    equal-trees (tree t1, t2) returns boolean

      if t1 = null
        then
          equal-trees <- (t1 = t2)
        else
          if t2 = null
            then
              equal-trees <- false
            else
              equal-trees <- (t1 (data) = t2 (data))
                                       and
                        equal-trees (t1 (left), t2 (left))
                                       and
                       equal-trees (t1 (right), t2 (right))
            endif
        endif

Now why should a compiler want to force someone to embed such pretty
code :-) within a pair of curly braces, or a begin-end pair, or what-
have-you?  Certainly it's no big deal to recognize the statement, as
compilers are so often forced to recognize statements that they've
become quite good at it.  If the code were any longer, one could argue
that it's done to increase readability by imposing delimeters.  That's
not the case here (albeit ~borderline).  Regardless, a comment or two
would suffice anyway.  If the code were any longer, one could argue
that it's done as a built-in error check.  But, the recent trends in
programming place emphasis on modular code; hence, people are writing
more, smaller procedures.

And to top it all off, many of the same languages that impose this
restriction allow as clauses of structured statements a single
statement of any type, which contradicts any justification for
requiring the body of a program or subprogram to be a compound
statement!  What I mean is, if it's required that the bodies of
programs and subprograms be a compound statement, it would only be
natural that the same hold true for "if"'s "then" and "else" clauses,
and loop bodies, and "case"/"switch"'s clauses, and...  AND!...
ARGHH!

Whew!  It's over.  I don't know what came over me, it all just seemed
to come in a single rush of uninhibited frustration!


                         _   /|
                         \`o_O'
                           ( )   Aachk! Phft!   
                            U


Disclaimer: The opinions and/or information and/or code expressed
            here were generated by this characature, stolen from
            Dave Rasmussen, to which I have taken the liberty of
            adding ears.  So don't look to me for a disclaimer!

Silver  {...!topaz!gaynor}