From: Austin Ziegler <halostatue@...>
Date: 2006-08-19T03:09:53+09:00
Subject: Re: Syntax checker wtf?

On 8/18/06, Daniel Martin <martin@snowplow.org> wrote:
> I'll note that perl has a similarly flexible syntax, yet I don't hear
> people new to perl complaining about this.  Perhaps this is because
> perl has more to complain about, from a newbie perspective, but I
> think it's also because perl gives better syntax error messages.  For
> example, if you get a runaway unclosed string or regexp (//) operator,
> the perl interpreter will, in the syntax error, also say something
> like "possible runaway string beginning line NN".
>
> This seems to me like it would be a simple addition to the ruby
> parser, to mention the line number of the thing it's trying to close
> when expecting tEND, or ']', or some other nested thing that can go
> off the end of the file.

Perl also has a separate compile step. (It may not seem like it, but
it does, internally.)

-austin
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