Semicolons: mostly unnecessary?

[Max Samukha]

On Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:21:25 +0200, bambo <ba at m.bo> wrote:

>Walter Bright schrieb:
>> Adam D. Ruppe wrote:
>> 
>> Ifthepointisntplainobviousfromtheabovefewersymbolsmostcertainly
>> doesNOTmeanalanguageisnecessarilyeasiertoparseSymbolsgiveus
>> aparsinganchorperiodsinasentencearentstrictlynecessarywecould
>> putoneperlineorjustfigureoutwheretheybelongbyparsingthecontext
>> Butthatsfairlyobviouslymuchharderthanusingperiodstofollowwhere
>> youareSemicolonsarethesamething
>> 
>> (Fixed that for you!)
>
>Walter, what a remarkable proove the semicolon helps us all a lot!
>You are sooooo BRIGHT! You are so creative and intelligent!
>
>I LOVE YOU!

This is one of Walter's proofs that don't prove anything. Spaces
between words are *not redundant*. And we are talking about
*redundant* semicolons in programs where sentences (statements) are
mostly placed each on its own line, unlike human languages where
sentences are separated by points. New lines between statements are
separators that make semicolons redundant.

Anyway, I agree that semicolons should stay. However, the reasons are
different.