RE: Is this the Free-Format that we asked for?

If the explicit statement terminator is not available, statements either
trickle off the right for a long ways (hard to read, understand, view, etc)
or their meaning is not ambiguous - they may be interpreted in multiple
ways.  Some of the rules needed to make the statement have a definite
meaning may be less desirable than the semicolon.  Since it is their
product, I will let the compiler people give you a taste for that.

I have coded in languages that use explicit statement terminators for years.
It takes only a few hours to do them automatically.  In my opinion, it is a
mistake to make a big usability issue out of this.

Richard Jackson
Richard Jackson and Associates Ltd.
IBM Business Partner
mailto:richardjackson@richardjackson.net
http://www.richardjacksonltd.com
Telephone: 1 (303) 808-8058


-|-----Original Message-----
-|From: owner-rpg400-l@midrange.com [mailto:owner-rpg400-l@midrange.com]On
-|Behalf Of John Taylor
-|Sent: Thursday, November 02, 2000 9:14 AM
-|To: RPG400-L@midrange.com
-|Subject: RE: Is this the Free-Format that we asked for?
-|
-|
-|Hi Eric,
-|
-|
-|> I personally have no problem with explicit statement terminators.
-|> The reason they are incorporated into a language is that it makes it
-|> much easier to write the compiler.
-|
-|But why is it more important to simplify the job of the few (compiler
-|designers), at the expense of the many (us!)? Especially when we consider
-|that we're not asking Toronto to come up with some new ground breaking
-|compiler design feature. I've been using free-format compilers that don't
-|use an end-of-line statements for at least a decade.
-|
-|In fact, Hans has already mentioned (on the AS400Network forum) that the
-|original design did not include an end-of-line terminator. Apparently, it
-|was added to eliminate the need for a continuation character on multiple
-|line statements. To me, that seems nuts! Surely, we're all
-|writing MANY more
-|single line statements than multiple ones. Wouldn't this be like reversing
-|the behavior of the shift key so that we'd have to hold it down
-|in order to
-|type lower case letters?
-|
-|> As far as goto's are concerned I am GLAD GLAD GLAD that they are gone
-|> :-) If one takes advantage of functions and modular programming then
-|> the need for goto statements decreases dramatically.
-|
-|Thank's for your opinion. :)
-|
-|
-|Regards,
-|
-|John Taylor
-|Canada
-|
-|
-|
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