Python grammar..

[David LeBlanc]

In article <9ga2bu02i71 at enews1.newsguy.com>, aleaxit at yahoo.com says...
<snip>
> Maybe this is the reason behind the incompatible change
> in the move VB.6 -> VB.NET (one of many): all calls to
> function and subroutines *DO* now require parentheses --
> the parentheses in the call are not optional any more.
> 
> > total dog's breakfast from a language point of view.
> 
> It looks like VB.NET is marginally better (since all of
> the incompatible changes move it closer to Python: it
> now has a return statement, which can take a value --
> mandatory parentheses on calls, as I mentioned -- no
> more "default value" on objects -- no more distinction
> between LET and SET assignments -- etc, etc).
> 
> 
> Alex

Moving a bit off to the side, I wonder if VB's "simplification" could be 
due to the fact that in the VBScript vs. Javascript arena, VBScript is 
the hands down loser - something like 80% of _all_ server scripting is 
done with javascript even on IIS.

While I never liked or thought much of BASIC ("Fortran with a thyroid 
condition"), Gates has managed to raise it to the status of loathsome. Of 
course, in all language usage surveys since about 1960, BASIC has been 
the most used language of all by wide margins... I'd rather be condemned 
to using Perl!

Dave LeBlanc