From: Mark Hubbart <discordantus@...>
Date: 2004-10-08T07:07:04+09:00
Subject: Re: quality of error messages

On Fri, 8 Oct 2004 06:43:35 +0900, Charles Mills <cmills@freeshell.org> wrote:
> On Oct 7, 2004, at 1:57 PM, Austin Ziegler wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, 7 Oct 2004 07:39:04 +0900, Markus <markus@reality.com> wrote:
> >> On Wed, 2004-10-06 at 15:19, Joachim Wuttke wrote:
> >>> Thank you, Brian.
> >>> This is quite a convincing example: I count not less than eight
> >>> places where the "end" could be missing.
> >>> Just for curiosity: why didn't Ruby borrow indentation semantics
> >>> from Python ?
> >>      Now there's an RCR I'd support.  Heck, I'd even volunteer to code
> >> it!
> >
> > I think you'll find more people who don't want such an abomination.
> >
> > Python's indentation is the number one thing that prevents me from
> > even considering using that language, because it forces me to work in
> > a stupid manner (e.g., *its* manner), rather than adapting to my
> > manner.
> 
> I feel the same way as Austin here.
> Although there have been a few times where I have had to break a script
> up into smaller tmp files to figure out where the unclosed
> block/if/.../ started.  A separate utility to check the indentation
> would be useful (IMHO), but I don't think it really belongs in the main
> parser (or in Ruby at all).

At first I was thinking that it should be a separate program; but then
I was thinking about how unhelpful the error messages that are
generated by the "missing end" error are. Integrating the indentation
check into the parser would allow for the automatic detection of that
type of error. Since it should only check for *consistent* indentation
levels, it should be flexible enough to allow people to use it
constantly.

cheers,
Mark