sh: case .... ==> ;; esac <==

[Jeff Carroll]

In article <326 at nyet.UUCP> pete at nyet.UUCP (Pete Hardie) writes:

>There is also a largish body of research that supports this view.  Most
>of the studies point to Pascal's usage of ";" as causing many errors, 
>due to the (apparent) inconsistency of placement - it's there sometimes
>but not always, and people will forget to look for it when they are
>adding code.

	I used to think this too, but then I went back and read my
Pascal textbook (which I was too busy to do when I took my first class
in Pascal). It really does make sense if you take the time to understand
it.
  

>btw, I'd also like to ask why Pascal had to have the '.' as program 
>terminator, instead of the ';' as module separator?


	Because Pascal was designed on a blackboard, with no thought of
whether it would ever have to run on a real computer. Or has everyone
forgotten that by now?

	Boy, I feel old.

	Followups to comp.lang.pascal.

	Jeff Carroll
	carroll at atc.boeing.com