An interesting beginner question: why we need colon at all in the python language?

[Anthony Kong]

Hi, all,

Lately I am giving some presentations to my colleagues about the python
language. A new internal project is coming up which will require the use of
python.

One of my colleague asked an interesting:

*If Python use indentation to denote scope, why it still needs semi-colon at
the end of function declaration and for/while/if loop?*

My immediate response is: it allows us to fit statements into one line. e.g.
if a == 1: print a

However I do not find it to be a particularly strong argument. I think PEP8
does not recommend this kind of coding style anyway, so one-liner should not
be used in the first place!

Is there any other reasons for use of semi-colon in python?


Cheers
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