Another newbie design question

[Bruno Desthuilliers]

MartinRinehart at gmail.com a écrit :
> Fortran (1957) had line comments. C (1972) replaced these with non-
> nested block comments. C++ (1983) added here-to-EOL comments. Python
> (1991) keeps here-to-EOL comments but replaces block comments with
> multi-line quotes. Block comments and multi-line quotes both serve the
> same purpose as doc comments. Block comments, especially if they nest,
> are helpful for commenting out code. Multi-line quotes serve to add
> text.
> 
> Is Python, in this particular, an advance over C++?
> 
> I wrote a lot of Java (here-to-EOL and block comments) without ever
> feeling the need for multi-line quotes.

I wrote a lot of Java without ever feeling the need for things functions 
as objects, lexical closures, lazy evaluation, anonymous functions etc. 
Then I learned to use these features and couldn't stand coding in Java 
no more.

> I've written a little Perl and
> found multi-line quotes useful for responding to -help switches. On
> the other hand -help switches are very old-fashioned, a direction I'll
> not be pointing my tiny beginner's language.

"old-fashioned" ? Do you have something better to suggest ? Please keep 
in mind that most servers don't have GUIs (for obvious reasons).

But multiline strings are not only useful for "old-fashioned -help 
switches" - they are useful anywhere you need a quick and simple text 
templating system - be it html, javascript, SQL, whatever - and using a 
full blown templating system would be overkill. IOW, like a lot of other 
features, it's not that you cannot do without, but it really helps when 
it's available *and* braindead easy to setup and use.

My 2 cents...