From: "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <znmeb@...>
Date: 2006-08-18T22:43:46+09:00
Subject: Re: Syntax checker wtf?

Austin Ziegler wrote:
> On 8/18/06, Firstname Surname <rubyforum@wendlink.com> wrote:
>> I think the syntax checker could be a little more verbose, and I don't
>> think it would take much work.
> 
> It'd take more work than you think. See, you've actually got several
> issues that you keep repeating in your example code, and that could be
> the problem. The use of a high-quality editor and good practices will
> also help.
> 
> Here's the real trick that you're forgetting that makes it a bit harder
> for Ruby to deal with what you're talking about: it is not just
> line-oriented, it is expression oriented. Expressions may be terminated
> either by an unambiguous line ending (that is, it doesn't end with a
> continuation character \, comma, period, or an operator that says that
> the next item will be on the next line) or semicolons.

I think what's most troubling to the original poster is something that I
have such a problem with that I more or less refuse to use it. That is
the pseudo-flexibility offered by having "open syntactic elements"
designate that the next line continues a statement or expression, rather
than forcing an error as older languages did.

In short, if I type

a = (b +

to an interpreter, I want it to complain that I'm missing an operand and
a right paren, *not* go blindly ahead expecting

c) /
sqrt(7**15
) - (olive**oil)

Yes, that's a contrived example, but as far as I'm concerned, if end of
line terminates a "statement", then continuation of a line should
require an *explicit* continuation designator, such as "\".