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From: carroll@s.cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: What makes a language successfu
Message-ID: <208100002@s.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 9 Dec 88 17:27:00 GMT
References: <1126@etive.ed.ac.uk>
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Nf-ID: #R:etive.ed.ac.uk:1126:s.cs.uiuc.edu:208100002:000:1133
Nf-From: s.cs.uiuc.edu!carroll    Dec  9 11:27:00 1988


/* Written 10:10 am  Dec  4, 1988 by bct@lfcs.ed.ac.uk in s.cs.uiuc.edu:comp.lang.misc */
/* ---------- "Re: What makes a language successfu" ---------- */
 Another sad point is that even died-in-the wool Algol 68 people like Charles
Lindsey have drifted into putting semi-colons before ENDs. I really hate that
part of Pascal:
/* End of text from s.cs.uiuc.edu:comp.lang.misc */

I always thought that the 'no ; before END' part of PASCAL was one of the worst
'features' of the language. I can't count how many times I had to recompile
because I had added a statement before an END and forgotten to put a ; on
the *previous* statement. Having to remember 'put a ; at the end of a statement
*unless* it's just before an END, in which case you put it on the end of
the previous statement' is for me much harder than 'put a ; at the end of
a statement', as in C. I don't like non-local syntax changes like that.

Alan M. Carroll          "How many danger signs did you ignore?
carroll@s.cs.uiuc.edu     How many times had you heard it all before?" - AP&EW
CS Grad / U of Ill @ Urbana    ...{ucbvax,pur-ee,convex}!s.cs.uiuc.edu!carroll