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Re: Reader option to permit brackets as parentheses


At 19:59 -0700 07.01.1999, Telford Tendys wrote:
>> Is that what python is? Sounds like a _very_ bad idea to have code
>> meaning depending on whitespace.
>
>Why? Whitespace is understandable, obvious, easy to edit, easy to align.

This comment causes flashbacks to when I was learning 'make'. I did not
realize that it was tab not just whitespace that was relevant. The error
message that make came back w/ wasn't really helpful to me at that point
either.

Anyway...

>I think that people had this big reaction against whitespace when
>they saw Pascal and C as the next big thing that would replace FORTRAN
>and they wanted to show that they were cool by allowing whitespace
>to be anywhere at all. Since then all they have done is argue over
>indentation and pretty printing standards...

If whitespace has semantics then isn't just enforcing indentation and
printing? Ofcourse, this is getting way off the track. Anyway, using a
'smart' editor makes most of the grouping/indenting problem a non-issue.

\p
---
sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes
		--Juvenal *Satire* VI, 165

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