Hmmm... some discussion generated on this subject, but fairly light. I take that as an indicator that an C<else> on loops is a fairly popular idea. The other possibilities are that b) people don't want any form of "else" on loops and aren't saying so or c) people simply don't care, but silence and apathy just don't seem to be vices we're afflicted with in this community. ;)
My confession for the day is: I actually like the if-like C<else> blocks on loops. But attacking a problem from an alternate angle is a valuable exercise. In this case: Taking this perspective made me realize that there is a significant semantic difference between the various new uses of C<else>. But, in linguistic terms, it is a perfectly valid to have a range of meaning associated with a word (I mean related senses, not homophones or homographs, e.g. think of as many uses as you can for the noun "handle"), the human brain is well adapted to it. Still, it will need to be taught, or at least glossed-over-with-full-conciousness-that- it's-being-glossed-over, like the semantic difference between C<if> statements and C<if> modifiers. I also realized that there is a chance for user error in expecting certain values to be accesible outside their scope in the C<else> block. But, I'd rather teach (and use) a clear, well defined, unchanging rule of scope than a handful of exceptions any day. As I was talking to Damian, he came up with a compelling semantic argument why we would want C<else> blocks to follow, which is a question that needed to be faced since we rejected C<continue>. But he should be posting not too long after me (allow for time zone differences), so I won't steal his thunder (well, not too much anyway :). And the discussion of scope led to (what I think is) an interesting tidbit on NAMED blocks (duplicate comment on thunder). BTW, a few nails in the coffin I didn't mention: having an C<else> and an C<ELSE> is confusing. It's bad enough that we have C<last> and C<LAST>, etc., at least the lowercase keywords there don't have associated blocks. And something just feels right about C<else> blocks on loops. It fits in with that Perlish pattern of allowing structures that feel so natural you wonder why no other language ever allowed them. Allison
