[Python-ideas] Making colons optional?

[Riobard Zhan]

On 8-Feb-09, at 3:50 AM, Bruce Leban wrote:

> You can not generalize that far. Most programming languages require  
> commas (notable exceptions include Lisp and Tcl), but Python is the  
> only language that requires trailing colons.
>
> Nope. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smalltalk

Just checked. Smalltalk's colons seem to have completely different  
semantics. Correct me if I'm wrong, but they appear to be at the end  
of every keyword, including ifTrue and ifElse.


> There are some differences between making commas optional and making  
> trailing colons optional.
>
> "There are some differences between making X optional and making Y  
> optional" for all features X and Y.

This generalization is meaningless. You deliberately ignored the  
original context.


> Clearly the use of the specific semicolon character is confusing  
> you. So let's replace it with a better symbol: \n as in this example:
>
>   for i in x: foo(i) \n bar(i+1)
>
> Sure a \n is optional at the end of any line because a blank line is  
> always allowed. So what?

What's the point you are trying to make?