OpenEuphoria

Re: Feature creep

• Posted by CChris <christian.cuvier at agri?ul?ure.gouv.fr> May 15, 2008
• 745 views

Matt Lewis wrote:
> 
> CChris wrote:
> > 
> > c.k.lester wrote:
> > 
> > > So far with development of 4.0, the only thing I was cautious about was
> > > making 'then' and 'do' optional. I would always use those terms simply
> > > for maintenance purposes, so my only concern was what if I began using
> > > a library that did not use 'then' and 'do?' Could that lead to problems
> > > in my own code?
> > 
> > Zero. The parser stops reading a logical expression as soon as it finds any
> > token which would not make sense in a conditional expression at the point it
> > is. It will keep doing that.
> 
> You didn't answer his question.  Of course the parser could  be capable of
> doing that.  But that's only one part of the equation.  The programmer must
> also be considered.  We've already had one person tell us about how this
> would absolutely cause him problems.
>  
> > Someone said it would weaken the block structure (how? "if" opens a block,
> > not "then"), and at the same time rejected a nice way to make it even more
> > visible in code - proper indentation is a good policy, but no one is
> > compelled to comply. I must say that I don't quite understand the
> > discrepancy.
> 
> Yes, I said it.  We must have different definitions of block.  I (nor did
> Jason) reject proper indentation.  I guess we assumed (I certainly did) that
> since the topic was modifying the interpreter, so were you.  Even so, it's
> not uncommon to write multi-line conditionals.  I do sometimes miss putting
> an "and" or an "or" between lines (just like Salix's example).
> 

What would be the need to indent them?
After all, the interpreter knows indentation doesn't count inside a header.


> As to the block issue, consider the following:
> }}}
<eucode>
>   -- Current syntax:
>   if foo then
>     puts(1,"foo")
>   end if
> 
>   -- Optional then syntax:
>   if foo
>     puts(1,"foo")
>   end if
> </eucode>
{{{

> In both cases, the block of code within the if statement is puts(1,"foo").
> In the current example, the block is defined by "then" and "end if".  In the
> optional example, the block is defined by the end of the logical expression
> ("foo") and "end if".
> 

Keep then and friends optional, I see nothing wrong with them apart from having
to type them and clutter the screen.

> In neither case would I consider "foo" to be part of the block.  Nor does
> any other language I'm aware of.  In fact, many require you to put the
> condition inside parenthesis, which euphoria does not.

But they spare you the "end <block>".

CChris