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From: ludemann@ubc-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.lang
Subject: Re: Discussion on removing punctuation in programming languages
Message-ID: <437@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 14-Oct-86 02:52:01 EDT
Article-I.D.: ubc-cs.437
Posted: Tue Oct 14 02:52:01 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 17-Oct-86 08:10:10 EDT
References: <7796DMB@PSUVMA> <21461@rochester.ARPA>
Reply-To: ludemann@ubc-cs.UUCP (Peter Ludemann)
Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 29
Keywords: BCPL doesn't need punctuation

You anti-punctuators might consider looking at the BCPL book (Strachey
et al if I remember correctly).  BCPL allows leaving out semicolons
before end-of-line.  If the last item on a line is an operator, then
the statement is assumed to continue on the next line.  Thus,
	a := b + c
	d := e
	a := b +
	     c 
would be correct but
	a := b 
	     + c
would be an error.

So, the only use of semicolons would be something like:
	temp := a;  a := b;  b := temp;  /* swap a and b */
(before anyone starts flaming about lvalues and rvalues, I know
that this is NOT how it is written in BCPL)

SASL (St. Andrews Static Language - Turner et al) has a method of
avoiding punctuation by paying attention to indenting.  I could look
up the details if anyone is interested.

Incidentally, a nice feature of BCPL is the ability to dynamically 
allocate a vector on the stack.  (This feature is provided in 4.2bsd 
C by a function that is described as non-portable.) 

Also, the question was raised if any language allowed
if a < b < c then ...
and the answer is (of course) COBOL.