"Bill Page" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: | On August 19, 2006 6:42 PM Tim Daly wrote: | > | > > > Ralf wrote: | > > >> Anyway that is a very good example why pile syntax is | > > >> terrible. | > > Bill Page wrote: | > > > Ralf, I am sorry but your comment makes me rather angry. :( | > > Ralf replied: | > > I hope you have some mercy with me. But I cannot believe | > > that you find that code easily readable. | > | > Sorry for re-opening this debate again but.... | > | > What possible advantage can piles claim? | > | | Hmmm... 20,000 Python programmers? ;)
That is hardly a conclusive argument. [...] | But it's an old debate alright. Using indentation to represent | (not just document) program structure was in fact proposed by | Donald Knuth and several others 46 years ago! well, given TeX's syntax, I would not claim his language syntax design choices are always very spectacular, compared to his strength at other computer science matters :-/ [...] | But there are some well known languages other than Python use | indentation for program structure (notably: Haskell). yes, and I hate it. Two months ago I wasted whole day chasing a bug in one of my Haskell programs, only to discover that it was an identation issue in an instance declaration. That bug happened after reformating a correct, working, program. It is a misfeature. -- Gaby _______________________________________________ Axiom-developer mailing list [email protected] http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/axiom-developer
