Re: can ada do this?

[Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com>]

On Fri, 17 May 2019 07:42:00 -0700 (PDT), gautier_niouzes@hotmail.com
declaimed the following:

>> Some Adaphiles yearn for a more-pandering-to-popularity AdaNG (Ada next generation) that, say, has braces instead of BEGIN END, and numerous other shallow “features”.
>
>The braces replace exactly the BEGIN END pair in *Pascal* (they are needed for framing more than one instruction). In Ada the BEGIN END pair is only for subprograms, or blocks (with or without DECLARE) but the IFs, LOOPs and CASEs don't need it. Basically groups of instructions don't need to be framed in Ada, so where would you
put your braces ?... In the end you would have a mess with some braces and some "end loop" etc.


	Since {} are used in those languages to /group statements/ where the
syntax says "a statement", making an Ada-esque language means making a
syntax were control blocks are NOT delimited... dropping "loop/end loop",
"then/end if", et al, requiring conditionals to be wrapped in (), and
allowing
	if (conditional)
		a statement;
	else
		another statement;

Ada's 
	if condition then
		a statement;
	else
		another statement;
	end if;

is an improvement over the error prone use of {} to group statements within
syntactically "single statement" parts of the language.

	And I thought people complaining about Python's use of indentation to
block statements was ridiculous -- since most programmers I know already
indent code to reflect the semantics, having the language /use/ that
indentation for syntax meant one didn't have to provide {} or begin/end
(loop/end loop, etc.).

	Avoiding {} as grouping also minimizes the infernal fight over
placement. Is it...

	if (cond) {
		statements;
	}
(UGH -- if that were a required form I'd likely define macros for THEN and
ENDIF [and the rest of the gang])

	if (cond)
		{
			statements;
		}

(small ugh -- too many indentation levels eaten for nothing)

	if (cond)
	{
		statements;
	}

(which is my preference in those languages, as it puts the {} directly in
line with the keyword for which they are grouping the statements)


-- 
	Wulfraed                 Dennis Lee Bieber         AF6VN
	wlfraed@ix.netcom.com