The classic solution of this problem was invented in FORTRAN in early 50 -- it is a backslash at the end of the line.
And, again... exactly how much existing Perl 5 code has backslashes at the end of lines (commented or otherwise)? Approximately none. Boom. It breaks.
Question to you: how many times you corrected missing semicolon in your Perl scripts the last week ?
That's an easy one: Zero.
Which isn't to claim that I never forget semicolons, but I generally only get "possible missing semicolon"-type errors from the compiler once every month or two, and the compiler is often wrong about them. (There's still an error in my code, of course, but it's a different error, rather than the missing semicolon that the compiler suspected.)
Edit: Come to think of it, that closing parenthetical is an even bigger problem with this suggestion. If the compiler thinks I have a missing semicolon, but the real error is actually something else... then that means that, if the compiler says "hey, no problem, I'll just implicitly add that semicolon for you", then the actual error will still be there, undetected, waiting to strike at run-time when I least expect it. That is not an improvement!
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The classic solution of this problem was invented in FORTRAN in early 50 -- it is a backslash at the end of the line.
Fortran didn't have a release until 1957 so not early 50s. Fortran prior to F90 used a continuation character at the start (column 6) of the subsequent line not the end of the previous line. The continuation character in Fortran has never been specified as a backslash. Perhaps you meant some other language?
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Yes, the first FORTRAN compiler was delivered in April 1957. I was wrong, sorry about it. Still the idea of continuation symbol belongs to FORTRAN, although the solution was different then the one I mentioned.
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The classic solution of this problem was invented in FORTRAN in early 50 -- it is a backslash at the end of the line. Perl can use #\ as this is pragma to lexical scanner, not the element of the language.
I took a FORTRAN course at Waterloo in Fall of 1976, and at that time the continuation character was a '+' in column 6. I'd like to know which publication or reference told you that a continuation was a backslash at the end of a line.
In addition, I'm quite happy with Perl understanding that a line without a semi-colon is continued on the next line. It's the same rule that C uses, so having ';' as a line terminator has made sense to me since 1981. I'm happy to stick with that convention.
Alex / talexb / Toronto
Thanks PJ. We owe you so much. Groklaw -- RIP -- 2003 to 2013.
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how many times you corrected missing semicolon in your Perl scripts the last week
After running the code - never. All the IDEs I use for all the languages I use flag missing semi-colons and other similar foibles (like mis-matched brackets.
There are nasty languages that I use occasionally, and even some respectable ones, that need to quote new lines to extend a statement across multiple lines. That is just nasty on so many levels. I very much agree with dsheroh that long lines are anathema. Code becomes much harder to read and understand when lines are long and statements are not chunked nicely.
Don't break what's not broken!
Optimising for fewest key strokes only makes sense transmitting to Pluto or beyond
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My concern would be all the code I'd have to hunt thru and change just so someone could not do something I think they should anyway. (Term with semicolons)
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