Re: [NOISE] Curly braces [was Re: Curl]

[Tony Kimball <address@hidden>]

Quoth Michael Vanier on Thursday, 29 November:
: 
: Don't you mean:
: 
: (> (/ (+ (- b) (sqrt (- (* b b) (* 4 a c)))) (* 2 a)) 0)
: 
: ?  I think that unmakes your point.

I would rather say that it emphasizes another poster's point about
IDEs:  He was probably in a mail editor rather than a code editor, and
it didn't do the paren blinking he's learned to rely upon.

Having hacked reams of Fortran algebraic notation, I'll confidently
state that one can't base a strong proselytic argument on the
resistance of Fortran arithmetic expressions to errors of operator
precedence.

Algebraic expressions are not the only analogous case -- they are just
the most familiar, because you've been taught to use them since you
were wee.  Indentation problems occur in Python, mismatched braces
occur in C, etc.  Lisp expressions and C blocks have the advantage
that the reader/parser will catch the error in almost every practical
case.  Infix expressions relying on operator precedence lack this
advantage.  I haven't coded enough Python to make an inference
regarding the likelihood of an uncaught indentation error.