I don't put in extraneous ';' because I maybe get a blister on my little finger.
I suspect that those who find the semi-colons ugly in R do not find them ugly in C. I think the reason there would be a visceral reaction in R but not in C is that there is a danger when using them in R that they really mean something. We get questions on R-help often enough about why code like: if(x > 0) y <- 4 else y <- 4.5e23 doesn't work. If people habitually used semi-colons, those sorts of questions would probably multiply. Patrick Burns [EMAIL PROTECTED] +44 (0)20 8525 0696 http://www.burns-stat.com (home of S Poetry and "A Guide for the Unwilling S User") Xiaofan Li wrote: >I consistently use ";" at every end of my R code and have found it much more >neat than those sentences without an end; for "<-" and "=", if I were the >author I would rather take the first representation as a sign of >passing-by-reference while the latter by value. > >Xiaofan Li >DAMTP, University of Cambridge, CB3 0WA, UK >Tel +44 7886 614030, Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > >-----Original Message----- >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Sent: 06 December 2005 14:16 >To: rHelp >Subject: Re: [R] R is GNU S, not C.... [was "how to get or store ....."] > >Martin Maechler a écrit : > > > >>please, please, these trailing ";" are *so* ugly. >>This is GNU S, not C (or matlab) ! >> >>but I'll be happy already if you could drop these ugly empty >>statements at the end of your lines... >> >> > >May I disagree ? >I find missing ";" at end of lines *so* ugly. >Ugly/not ugly depends on our observer's eyes. > From my programmer point of view, I prefer to mark clearly the end of the >lines. >In many languages, it's safer to do it this way, and I thank the R >developers to permit it. >(in my opinion, it should even be mandatory). >(By the way, marking the end of lines with a unique symbol makes also the >job easier for the following treatment.) And yes, I'm also a C programmer >;-) > > > {and I have another chain of argments why "<-" is so more > > expressive than "=" > >Why "<-" seems better than "=" is also quite mysterious for me. >There was a discussion about this point recently I think. >I believe in 99% of cases it's more for historical reason (and perhaps also >for some "snob" reasons). > >I am not at all a 20 years experienced R programmer, but I have written >several hundreds of R lines those 6 last months, and until today didn't get >any problem using "=" instead of "<-". > >But I'll read your chain of arguments with interest. > >______________________________________________ >R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list >https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help >PLEASE do read the posting guide! >http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.htmle.html > >______________________________________________ >R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list >https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help >PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > > > > > ______________________________________________ R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html