• Kagamin <spam here.lot> Nov 13 2010
• bearophile <bearophileHUGS lycos.com> Nov 13 2010
• Kagamin <spam here.lot> Nov 13 2010
• bearophile <bearophileHUGS lycos.com> Nov 13 2010

Kagamin <spam here.lot> writes:

bearophile Wrote:

 Kagamin:
 
 How do you look at necessary curly braces in Go? Shouldn't they adopt python
syntax while keeping Go design?


 I like Python syntax, but the features of a language must be all adapted to
each other, they form something like an ecology.
 
 In general what I look for is a language syntax that is somehow resilient
against simple mistakes that mammals do all the time. So curly braces are
sometimes better than bug-prone alternatives.


Aren't curly braces the same redundancy as semicolons, serving the same purpose?

bearophile <bearophileHUGS lycos.com> writes:

Kagamin:

 Aren't curly braces the same redundancy as semicolons, serving the same
purpose?


The information represented by the curly braces is represented by the
indentation levels. The semicolons are not necessary to represent logical
nesting, and indeed some Python-style languages avoid them. The semicolons were
added by Guido V.R. because an usability test on the ABC language (that's the
base for Python) has shown they improve readability, they help the mammals that
write the program.

Bye,
bearophile

Kagamin <spam here.lot> writes:

bearophile Wrote:

 Kagamin:
 
 Aren't curly braces the same redundancy as semicolons, serving the same
purpose?


 The information represented by the curly braces is represented by the
indentation levels.


http://docs.python.org/py3k/reference/lexical_analysis.html#explicit-line-joining
If understood it correctly, physical lines don't obey the indentation rules and
can have any indentation, e.g. the same indentation as the return statement in
the example.

bearophile <bearophileHUGS lycos.com> writes:

Kagamin:

 http://docs.python.org/py3k/reference/lexical_analysis.html#explicit-line-joining
 If understood it correctly, physical lines don't obey the indentation rules
and can have any indentation, e.g. the same indentation as the return statement
in the example.


Right. There are two exceptions to the rule: you may use the \ symbol to extend
a logical line, so here the indentation doesn't matter. And the same happens
inside a () [] or {}.

In practice the \ are uncommon in good Python programs, the programmer usually
just adds a ().

Bye,
bearophile