Semicolons: mostly unnecessary?

[Steven Schveighoffer]

On Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:46:37 -0400, AJ <aj at nospam.net> wrote:

>
> "Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy at yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:op.u16ild2leav7ka at localhost.localdomain...
>> On Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:42:31 -0400, AJ <aj at nospam.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Apparently it is NOT off-topic (someone else said: "hey, all you guys  
>>> who
>>> don't want semicolons: find another language or create your own!").
>>> While I
>>> wasn't proposing to change D, I wasn't NOT suggesting it, necessarily,
>>> for
>>> consideration in some version down the line (or what D could maybe  
>>> morph
>>> into).
>>
>> Your suggestion that you were not proposing to change the D language is
>> either supremely misleading, or flat out lying.
>>
>> The original post said "Why not eliminate the requirement for semicolon
>> statement terminators."  If you didn't mean D, then what the hell are  
>> you
>> talking about?
>
> I could have almost equivalently said: "Why does D require semicolons as
> statement terminators on single-statement lines?". Obviously I'm thinking
> that the semicolon used as noted may very well be redundant. I just  
> wanted
> "proof" one way or the other.

So misleading then.  The "equivalent" statement implies much less action  
than your original statement.  We have fallen victim to some English  
subtleties it appears.

>>
>> This is a very very old argument.  It's been argued about 5 times on  
>> this
>> newsgroup alone.
>
> I had no idea! How long ago? I'll go back and read the threads and with  
> even
> more interest now. I assumed that the semicolon, used as noted, was just
> carry-over from C/C++ rather than a re-evaluated and adopted-by-D thing.

search for semicolon, I'm sure you'll find stuff.

>> Find another topic.
>
> Maybe you shouldn't read threads you are not interested in? In that  
> regard,
> find another thread. :P

I'm just trying to save you time and effort.  If you want to argue tired  
old arguments, then why not start a thread on how emacs is tons better  
than vi?  You'd get the same effect.  In other words, my statement was a  
tip, not an attack ;)

-Steve