Re: [Axiom-developer] #pile vs. non-#pile

[Gabriel Dos Reis]

"Bill Page" <address@hidden> writes:

| On August 19, 2006 6:42 PM Tim Daly wrote:
| >
| > > > Ralf wrote:
| > > >> Anyway that is a very good example why pile syntax is
| > > >> terrible.
| > > Bill Page wrote:
| > > > Ralf, I am sorry but your comment makes me rather angry. :(
| > > Ralf replied:
| > > I hope you have some mercy with me. But I cannot believe 
| > > that you find that code easily readable.
| > 
| > Sorry for re-opening this debate again but....
| >
| > What possible advantage can piles claim?
| > 
| 
| Hmmm... 20,000 Python programmers? ;)

That is hardly a conclusive argument.

[...]

| But it's an old debate alright. Using indentation to represent
| (not just document) program structure was in fact proposed by
| Donald Knuth and several others 46 years ago!

well, given TeX's syntax, I would not claim his language syntax design
choices are always very spectacular, compared to his strength at other
computer science matters :-/

[...]

| But there are some well known languages other than Python use
| indentation for program structure (notably: Haskell).

yes, and I hate it.  Two months ago I wasted whole day chasing a
bug in one of my Haskell programs, only to discover that it was an
identation issue in an instance declaration.  That bug happened after
reformating a correct, working, program.  It is a misfeature.

-- Gaby