Why my ; continuator idea is better for debugging too.

[Maynard A. Philbrook Jr.]

In article <85795$54978fe1$5419aafe$2552 at news.ziggo.nl>, skybuck2000
@hotmail.com says...
> 
> Hello,
> 
> In the past I wrote about pascal's ; mistake.
> 
> ; should be used as a continuator.
> 
> I just made a programming mistake which solidifies/merits my idea:
> 
> The programming mistake was this:
> 
> vBattlefieldLosingWarrior :=
> 
> // modified warrior and brain
> vSimulatorWinningWarrior := vBattlefieldBattle.Warrior[0];
> 
> Code should look like this:
> 
> vBattlefieldLosingWarrior := 
> TBattlefieldWarrior(vBattlefieldBattle.Warrior[2].Association);
> 
> // modified warrior and brain
> vSimulatorWinningWarrior := vBattlefieldBattle.Warrior[0];
> 
> Fortunately there was a type mistmatch which hinted me at the programming 
> mistake.
> 
> The code is a bit messy above so let's make a simpler example to understand, 
> the in my oppinion, dangerous programming mistake:
> 
> A :=
> 
> B := C;
> 
> The above statements "A :=" is valid in Delphi's current design.
> 
> The danger is that B is assigned to A which is not what I wanted, the 
> problem was missing code at A.
> 
> So the danger is that some day, somebody will write B in such a way that it 
> will accidently be assigned to A.
> 
> By using ";" as a continuator instead of a "seperator" the code would look 
> as follows:
> 
> A :=
> 
> B := C
> 
> Since there was no continuator specified, "future-Delphi" would have been 

 That is perfectly valid and a good idea too.

 You can have a string of variables you need to initiate to short cut 
the coding, plus I also think it compacts the generated code because you 
only need to load a single register with the initial value.

A:=B:=C:=D:=0;

 All get set the zero..

Jamie