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From: byhoe@greenlime.com (Adrian Hoe)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: How to make Ada a dominant language
Date: 1 Aug 2001 08:00:32 -0700
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Russ <18k11tm001@sneakemail.com> wrote in message news:<3B67B0BC.F51C4CB4@sneakemail.com>...
> Adrian Hoe wrote:
> > 
> > Russ <18k11tm001@sneakemail.com> wrote in message news:<3B676974.C80C72E5@sneakemail.com>...
> > > Well, I guess I touched some raw nerves with my proposal to clean up
> > > Ada's syntax. I certainly appreciate the feedback.
> > >
> > > I have come to the conclusion that my first item (eliminating the "end"
> > > keyword and making the indentation structure an inherent part of the
> > > syntax, as in Python) is NOT a good idea after all. The "end" lines
> > > really do help with readability, particularly for long procedures that
> > > end on a different page than they started.
> > >
> > > However, I still stand by the other items in my proposal. I think
> > > semicolons should be essentially eliminated,
> > 
> > I still think a semicolon is nice It serves as a punctuation
> > indicating an end of the statement and the beginning of next How does
> > this paragraph looks like to you Taking away punctuations from written
> > text makes reading difficult Certainly people will likely to make
> > mistake while reading This is an analogy example to your proposition
> > to remove semicolon from Ada
> 
> But if almost every sentence were on a separate line, you wouldn't need
> punctuation to mark their end. Besides that; I think; too many;
> punctuation marks; make text; look cluttered; What; do; you; think?; ;')


Of course if you put semicolons like you did, they look cluttered.
Punctuation should be used correctly and purposefully at the right
place. In Ada, the purpose of semicolon is to mark the end of a
statement. Of course, it is illegal to put a semicolon immediately
after if ... then, not like C where it denotes null statement.

C:

if a == 0 then;   /* Is perfectly legal */

But in Ada:

if a = 0 then;    -- Illegal

According to your proposition:

if a = 0 then
   a = 1
   b = 2
   c = 3
end if

can lead to many errors, for instance:

if a = 0 then
   a = 1 b = 2
   c=3
end if

But with Ada:

if a = 0 then
   a = 1;
   b = 2;
   c = 3;
end if;

And this is much clearer because at a glance, you see the semicolons
and you see end of statements!

Adrian Hoe

> Russ