Semicolons: mostly unnecessary?

[AJ]

"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,

Twas not intended to be. Perhaps just YOU feel it is?

> or flat out lying.

Believe me, I have better things to do than try to change someone else's 
programming language. I just want to know "the answer".

>
> 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.

> And why on the D newsgroup?

D is promoted as "a better C++" and a "better" language along the lines of 
such "stylistics", and is (seemingly) under continuous 
development/rethinking (much more so than, say, C++). So what better group 
than the D ng?!

>
> 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.

> And one more time isn't going to change anyone's mind.

Well I wasn't trying to change anything. I just want to know and decide for 
myself.

> Find another topic.

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