On 30 Jan 2006, at 14:01, Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho wrote:
Thomas Davie wrote:
Except that there is a good reason (pos two) why the language is wrong - it's inconsistant with the other comment syntax, and it's confusing to newbies.
I tend to think of "--" as a reserved word in the same sense as "case" is a reserved word. Hence, -- starts a comment, --> doesn't. The opening brace ({) is not a symbol character, so {- is in the same category as the semicolon, special symbol, not a reserved word.
I was actually delighted to learn that it works like this.
For newbies, just tell them that "-- " is the comment starter. It works well enough, and newbies get a lot of other half-truths, so it's nothing earth-shattering :)
True but they're bound to get it wrong at least once (I know I did, and damn were the errors confusing). Also, how do you propose that -- is put on a slide and differentiated from --? The fact that -- is a reserved word while {- is not just highlights farther the inconsistency in the language. Bob