From: Tim Hunter <cyclists@...>
Date: 2004-01-09T10:21:40+09:00
Subject: Re: block delimiting

On Fri, 09 Jan 2004 09:44:33 +0900, Ralph Mason wrote:
> I am sure you could do something like
> 
> require 'make_me_like_python'
> 
> 
Back in 1985 the company I work for decided to rewrite its entire PL/I
code base in the then-new "C" programming language. PL/I, if you're not
familiar with it, uses DO and END keywords to delimit blocks.

The programmers didn't like C's new-fangled brace-delimited blocks, so
they all created little header files with two macros:

#define DO {
#define END }

and started coding

if (x > 0) DO
  /* stuff */
END

and were happy. For about a month, after which they collectively said
"screw it, you can't make C into PL/I no matter how much preprocessing you
do", deleted the header files, and started using braces.