Python Quiz

[Peter Hansen]

Mark Jackson wrote:
> 
> Michael Chermside <mcherm at mcherm.com> writes:
> > Of course, I'm not suggesting that whitespace is *meaningless* in Python
> > outside of indentation... Python is much like C (and many, many others) in
> > that regard. 
> 
> Note that Fortran (at least historic Fortran - not sure about those
> upstart 9x variants) is *not* among the "many, many others."  One can
> write any of
> 
>         DO 10 I = something
>         DO10I = something
>         D O 1 0 I = something
> 
> and leave it to the compiler to figure out whether you're starting a
> DO-loop or assigning a value to the variable DO10I.

If you are saying that you leave it up to the compiler to decide how
to interpret any of the three above statements, then clearly whitespace
is *not* meaningless.  It might be compiler-dependent or something,
but no meaningless.  Unless you are saying that on a given FORTRAN
compiler, only one possible interpretation of all three statements
above is possible.  That would be surprising.

-Peter