Re: newbie can't get exceptions to work!

[Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com>]

On Sat, 7 Apr 2001, Larry Hazel wrote:
> Ayende Rahien wrote:
> > "Brian Rogoff" <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> wrote in message
> > news:Pine.BSF.4.21.0104071403390.4484-100000@shell5.ba.best.com...
> > > On Sat, 7 Apr 2001, Robert A Duff wrote:
> > > > Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> writes:
> > > > > I tell you what, design this next language, and I'm on board.
> > > >
> > > > I think I'm competent to design the language.  What I don't know how to
> > > > do is get people to use it.
> > > I don't think you need to go quite as far as Cyclone. Dump "begin end" and
> > > use "{ }". If you keep the procedure/function distinction, use shorter
> > > names. Use [] for arrays. Use Pascal notation for pointers. Provide some
> > > shortcut operators like C. Keep Ada's modes. OK, so the language may look
> > > a bit different from Ada syntactically but I think it could stay in the
> > > spirit of Ada semantically.
> > 
> > I agree with all of the above, while begin-end may improve visibility, no
> > programming language has to consider non-programmers as a target audiance.
> > So {} as block statement, as well as some of C's nicest syntax features,
> > with all of Ada's safety behind it, you would have at least me as a fan.
> 
> I personally think {} should be removed from the character set, or at least
> require a minimum of 5 keystrokes to get either. 

Well, personally I think this opinion is crap. Any reasons behind your
opinion? We were discussing making a language popular, and Bob Duff
espoused the theory that C influenced syntax is popular, and that a new 
language might seek to emulate it. I don't find {} vs begin end to be 
terribly important, and not a reason that I like Ada over C and C++. 
In fact, single char brackets are arguably much better than keywords as 
bracketing constructs, even from the reader's POV. 

Of course, syntax is one of those things that people can flame over
endlessly. Suffice to say that a slightly less verbose, more C like 
surface syntax for an Ada like language isn't a bad idea IMO. 

> And keep () for array indices.  I have often used arrays as
> approximations of complex functions in the early stages of development.  

I've never done that, and besides () makes code so much less readable. If
you really want to do that, it's dead easy to do that with [] arrays. Need
a hint? Just wrap those arrays in function calls.  

Anyways, this was a post-facto justification of this awful choice in Ada. 
To be fair, it wasn't really a choice (of Ichbiah and co.) but a
requirement to the languages competing. 

-- Brian