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000050_icon-group-sender _Sat Oct 31 07:56:52 1992.msg
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1993-01-04
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Received: by cheltenham.cs.arizona.edu; Sat, 31 Oct 1992 08:03:07 MST
Date: 31 Oct 1992 07:56:52 -0600 (CST)
From: Chris Tenaglia - 257-8765 <TENAGLIA@mis.mcw.edu>
Subject: Re: confusing errors
To: icon-group@cs.arizona.edu
Message-Id: <01GQL9G7YK4291VWW7@mis.mcw.edu>
Organization: Medical College of Wisconsin (Milwaukee, WI)
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And now a comment from someone who doesn't have a CS degree and hasn't
taken classes on compiler/language design. flame on ;-)
I was programmer of BASIC and ASSEMBLER for 15 years. That's all
I knew. I tried to learn Pascal, I tried to learn C. Other than
horrible typed variables, the next stumbling block to learning
them was those pesky semicolons. We used to joke to each other,
" program not working? just generously pepper it with some more
semicolons!"
I picked up a little FORTRAN during that painful time. I also
read about Icon in Byte or Omni (I can't remember anymore).
Finally one day I was able to justify to management to spend
$50 to buy Icon 6.0 and the book, (instead of a proprietary
string language for $10,000).
I read book in a week. I wrote programs the next week. The code
actually was structured! No pesky semicolons, no pesky typed
variables, declarations, addresses, or pointers.
The 360 assembler we used (our own home brew) had nothing to
permit multiple statements on a line. And of course everything
had to fit in 71 bytes, have a blank, and then an 8 digit sequence
number for such is the world of HOLLERITH.
In BASIC there was either a \ or : to permit more than one statement
per line. This seems to me to be the icon use of a semicolon.
On rare occasions it's handy to me to bunch a mess of assignments
together.
x1 := ?horiz ; y1 := ?verti ; z1 := ?depth
x2 := ?horiz ; y2 := ?verti ; z2 := ?depth
I like that as kind of a grouping tool. But I would dread having to
terminate every statement/operation/expression with a semicolon.
That would make the code 'ugly' and cause those of us from certain
backgrounds to make a lot more mistakes. To me semicolons are a
throw back to the old days when compiler designers weren't as
smart as they are now. I say strict semicolon terminators belong
in the chad hopper with the 300 baud acoustic coupler modems and
other artifacts. Oh well, pardon my flames, but I couldn't bear to
see Icon turned into a PASCAL, C, PL/M, or ADA.
p.s. my degree is in scientific photography
Chris Tenaglia (System Manager) | "The past explained,
Medical College of Wisconsin | the future fortold,
8701 W. Watertown Plank Rd. | the present largely appologized for."
Milwaukee, WI 53226 | Organon to The Doctor
(414)257-8765 |
tenaglia@mis.mcw.edu