Broken pipe

[Lie Ryan]

On 05/15/10 11:56, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> In message <4bec2a9a$1 at dnews.tpgi.com.au>, Lie Ryan wrote:
> 
>> On 05/13/10 22:41, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>> In message <mailman.2720.1273210637.23598.python-list at python.org>, Chris
>>> Rebert wrote:
>>>
>>>> Also, please don't use semicolons in your code. It's bad style.
>>>
>>> Wonder why they’re allowed, then.
>>
>> they're there for line continuation, e.g.:
>>
>> a = 40; foo(a)
>>
>> but in many cases, putting two statements in a single line reduces
>> readability so use the semicolons extremely conservatively. But the
>> worst is the abuse of semicolons for end-of-line markers.
> 
> So why are they allowed, then?

Convenience. I've sometimes, in the interactive interpreter, written
codes that looks like:

a = 0; ... other code ...

since I need to reset the variable 'a' every time 'other code' is run.
If there hasn't been the ;, then I'd have to press up, up, enter, up,
up, change, enter. Compare that to up, change, enter since I can "up"
two "lines" at once.

In the interactive interpreter these sort of conveniences is often useful.

Unless your "why are they allowed" is about why a blank continuation
(i.e. abusing ; as line ending) is allowed. In that case, I'd presume
it's just because conceptually:

foo();
bar

is just:

foo()

bar()


but probably you're right; maybe they should be strictly disallowed. But
it's too late for this kind of change, not until py4k.