OK, so we all want to be somewhat popular, and it seems that my last article, “To Brace Or Not to Brace”, seems to have gotten a lot of attention, so, here goes my opinion on the popular semi-colon argument. First, I’m not against any languages in particular, but I have found that I do better in ones that have semi-colons. One of the features I really like is the ability to move my line returns anyplace I want, and to indent as I see fit. Though the semi-colon does not guarantee I can do this, it certainly makes life easier.
So, what’s wrong with using tabs to signal nesting levels and dispense with semi-colons? Well, for me, that is just too hard. I always seem to mess up and my code stops working. What about line continuations? I just have to ask why? Want to continue, just press the return key. Not much else to remember.
In College, I learned a language called PL/1 (long forgotten) that required semi-colons. I remember the compiler would constantly spit out errors saying “Maybe you have missed your semi-colon?”. I use to find that very annoying, but now, that I’m a semicolon lover, I just happily type them at the end of each statement I want terminated.
There are dissenters however. For example, the TheMightyFavog says “Let’s get rid of it. Nobody knows how to use the thing anyway”.
Just my 2 cents.