Paul Gilmartin writes:
And, in this list, I was recently admonished for writing a
superflous pair of parentheses in a JCL IF statement. I'm
still trying to decide whether to follow up with a humble and
grateful apology, or a defiant defense.
and since I was the putative admonisher, I will venture a further comment.
My first comment was more anthropological than technical. Brian Kernighan
carried the FORTRAN IF statement
IF(<logical expression>) <excecutable statement>
into C; and here and in other FORTRAN-like languages these parentheses have
a necessary syntactic function. In keyword-laden ALGOL-like
languages---PL/I and its dialects are the obvious examples---these
parentheses are otiose. The keyword 'then' in
if <logical expression> then . . . ;
[else . . . :]
makes them so.
My feeling about the use of these redundant parentheses is thus akin to my
feeling about the practice of wearing both a belt and suspenders/braces.
Inelegant they may be, indeed certainly are; but there should be no
sanctions against those who use|wear them.
John Gilmore
Ashland, MA 01721
USA
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