why ; ?

[bearophile]

Janice Caron Wrote:
> Besides which, how would that work with statements like
>     if (a == b) { ++i; ++j } else { --i; --j }
> If newlines were to take over the role of semicolons, then that would turn into
>     if (a == b) { ++i
>     ++j } else { --i
>     --j }

You may want to take a look at Scala.
Your statement can be written like this, that is readable but needs many lines:

if (a == b) {
    ++i
    ++j
} else {
    --i
    --j
}

Or like this:

if (a == b) { ++i; ++j; } else { --i; --j; }

(Plus various other ways you can use today).
Both versions are okay, because ; becomes optional when it's at the end of the line. And the symbols for line continuations are part of this proposal, I presume.

If you want to remove the brackets too, you may end with:

if a == b:
    ++i
    ++j
else:
    --i
    --j

Bye,
bearophile