Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!pacbell!att-ih!ihnp4!inuxc!iuvax!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!uxe.cso.uiuc.edu!hirchert
From: hirchert@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Readable names (was Re: case se
Message-ID: <51300007@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 21 Mar 88 18:44:00 GMT
References: <3156@fluke.COM>
Lines: 27
Nf-ID: #R:fluke.COM:3156:uxe.cso.uiuc.edu:51300007:000:1161
Nf-From: uxe.cso.uiuc.edu!hirchert    Mar 21 12:44:00 1988


>In article <1810@sics.se> pd@sics.UUCP (Per Danielsson) writes:

>> There are programming languages which allow blanks in identifiers,
>> and rightly so, since there's no reason not to.

>Well, some might argue that the resulting code is not as readable (since
>whitespace is often used to visually separate syntax elements).

>The only language I am aware of that allows embedded blanks is CORAL.
>It has the mis-feature of allowing any number of blanks ("the horror...
>the horror...").

>Are there languages other than CORAL that allow blanks in symbol names?


>Brian McElhinney
>mce@tc.fluke.com	

Although its not quite the same thing, FORTRAN allows symbolic names to be
written with embedded blanks.  The blanks are ignored and thus are not
significant in the interpretation of the name.  Thus, in a FORTRAN that allows
variable names longer than 6 characters, DO GRATE and DOG RATE are the same
identifier.  There is an ongoing debate within the FORTRAN community and the
FORTRAN standards committee in particular about whether this "feature" should
be phased out of the language.

Kurt W. Hirchert     National Center for Supercomputing Applications