From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,bc1361a952ec75ca X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-08-01 22:16:49 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!canoe.uoregon.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!enews.sgi.com!newshub2.rdc1.sfba.home.com!news.home.com!news1.rdc2.on.home.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3B68E243.263DB8F1@home.com> From: "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.75 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Semicolons (was: How to make Ada a dominant language) References: <3B676974.C80C72E5@sneakemail.com> <9ff447f2.0107312313.666dea54@posting.google.com> <9k92j4$n6j$1@nh.pace.co.uk> <3B6842AD.1C56ECBE@sneakemail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2001 05:16:48 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.141.193.224 X-Complaints-To: abuse@home.net X-Trace: news1.rdc2.on.home.com 996729408 24.141.193.224 (Wed, 01 Aug 2001 22:16:48 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2001 22:16:48 PDT Organization: Excite@Home - The Leader in Broadband http://home.com/faster Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:11033 Date: 2001-08-02T05:16:48+00:00 List-Id: Russ wrote: > Marin David Condic wrote: > > Maybe "The Borg" - Star Trek TNG? ...snip... > No, it's not that I want something I'm "used to." On the contrary, I > want to get RID of something I'm tired of: the semicolons in C/C++. > > > point to some kind of evidence that programs are routinely bungled or > > frequently contain syntax errors because of ":=" or ";" being parts of the > > language? Anything beyond "It doesn't look comfortable to me?") d) the > > syntax of Ada was carefully designed by people with a high level of > > experience and background in language design and the decisions were not made > > lightly, on a whim or because of one individual's "preference" that it look > > a certain way. > > It would be interesting to add up all the time programmers spend going > back and putting in semicolons and recompiling after the compiler > catches their omission. I'll bet it's over a tenth of a percent of the > programming time (of C/C++ and Ada programmers). Not much, eh? Let's > see, if 100,000 programmers are using those languages, that's 100 > man-years per year flushed right down the toilet. I think your experience with semicolons is unique. I rarely, if ever, miss a semi-colon. In fact, I cannot ever remember having to go back and put one in. If I did, it might have been way back when I was learning to program in "B" (until C later became available to me). However, even then, it seemed so natural to me -- much more so than trying to remember where the periods should go in COBOL! I did a stint in PL/I and it's various dialects, and again -- it seemed very very natural. If I were to design a language, I'd make certain it used a semicolon ;-) (even the smileys like it) In fact, if we are realistic here, I'll bet that this thread has easily cost more in human time (let alone USENET CPU cycles), than you'll ever save in the change you're proposing. ;-) Just an observation. -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://members.home.net/ve3wwg