Semicolons: mostly unnecessary?

["Jérôme M. Berger"]

Denis Koroskin wrote:
> On Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:43:13 +0400, Jérôme M. Berger <jeberger at free.fr> 
> wrote:
> 
>> Walter Bright wrote:
>>> Ifthepointisntplainobviousfromtheabovefewersymbolsmostcertainly
>>> doesNOTmeanalanguageisnecessarilyeasiertoparseSymbolsgiveus
>>> aparsinganchorperiodsinasentencearentstrictlynecessarywecould
>>> putoneperlineorjustfigureoutwheretheybelongbyparsingthecontext
>>> Butthatsfairlyobviouslymuchharderthanusingperiodstofollowwhere
>>> youareSemicolonsarethesamething
>>
>>     And how it that any better:
>>
>> If;the;point;isnt;plain;obvious;from;the;above;fewer;symbols;most;certainly; 
>>
>> does;NOT;mean;a;language;is;necessarily;easier;to;parse;Symbols;give;us;
>> a;parsing;anchor;periods;in;a;sentence;arent;strictly;necessary;we;could;
>> put;one;per;line;or;just;figure;out;where;they;belong;by;parsing;the;context; 
>>
>> But;thats;fairly;obviously;much;harder;than;using;periods;to;follow;where; 
>>
>> you;are;Semicolons;are;the;same;thing;
>>
>>         Jerome
> 
> FWIW, it's *much* easier to read

	Easier than Walter's? Probably, but don't tell me that it's easier 
than how it should be written (with spaces and no semicolons).

> (but I don't know how relevant it is to the discussion)

	About as much as Walter's example. The question is: "Does putting 
semicolons between statements when there is already a space there 
improve or impede readability?".

	Walter's example shows that removing all separation is bad but 
nobody was suggesting doing that. My example shows that putting 
semicolons everywhere is bad too.

		Jerome
-- 
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