Improving Compiler Error Messages

[Walter Bright]

bearophile wrote:
> Error messages in Python are OK. But the whole syntax of Python is designed
> around the idea of no semicolons.

I think there's a misunderstanding. The bit about semicolons in the article was 
not about removing statement terminators, it was about the idea that a statement 
termination can be inferred. For example:

     import std.stdio struct S { ... }

The compiler can infer that a statement terminator belongs between stdio and 
struct, so why should the programmer have to insert one?

What Python did was use a linefeed as the statement terminator rather than the 
;. Python does not attempt to infer where they should go. The redundancy is 
still there.

Javascript is fundamentally different in that it attempts to infer the statement 
terminator.

So why does D have ; as a statement terminator? The simple answer is because D 
is intended to have a low barrier for entry for C, C++, etc., programmers. The 
familiar look & feel makes the new language less intimidating. A personal answer 
is that I simply like it.