Language mavens: Is there a programming with "if then else ENDIF" syntax?

nn pruebauno at latinmail.com
Tue Nov 17 12:39:42 EST 2009


On Nov 16, 11:54 am, Steve Ferg <steve.ferg.bitbuc... at gmail.com>
wrote:
> This is a question for the language mavens that I know hang out here.
> It is not Python related, except that recent comparisons of Python to
> Google's new Go language brought it to mind.
>
> NOTE that this is *not* a suggestion to change Python.  I like Python
> just the way it is.  I'm just curious about language design.
>
> For a long time I've wondered why languages still use blocks
> (delimited by do/end, begin/end, { } , etc.) in ifThenElse statements.
>
> I've often thought that a language with this kind of block-free syntax
> would be nice and intuitive:
>
>     if <condition> then
>         do stuff
>     elif <condition> then
>         do stuff
>     else
>         do stuff
>     endif
>
> Note that you do not need block delimiters.
>
> Obviously, you could make a more Pythonesque syntax by using a colon
> rather then "then" for the condition terminator.  You could make it
> more PL/I-like by using "do", etc.
>
> You can write shell scripts using if ... fi, but other than that I
> don't recall a language with this kind of syntax.
>
> Does anybody know a language with this kind of syntax for
> ifThenElseEndif?
>
> Is there any particular reason why this might be a *bad* language-
> design idea?

I personally like the "END X" syntax (not that I would want it for
Python mind you). It makes it easier to read programs backwards.
Foxpro used that syntax form extensively:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/b660264t%28VS.80%29.aspx

DO CASE ... ENDCASE
DO WHILE ... ENDDO
FOR EACH ... ENDFOR
FOR ... ENDFOR
IF ... ENDIF
PRINTJOB ... ENDPRINTJOB
SCAN ... ENDSCAN
TEXT ... ENDTEXT
WITH ... ENDWITH



More information about the Python-list mailing list