Why not allow empty code blocks?

[Rustom Mody]

On Wednesday, August 3, 2016 at 5:11:23 PM UTC+5:30, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Wednesday 03 August 2016 05:22, Paul Rubin wrote:
> 
> >> The Halting Problem is easily solved for Bloop languages: they always
> >> halt.
> > 
> > If Bloop is powerful enough to "solve the halting problem" as you
> > describe, that gives it capabilities that Turing-complete languages
> > lack.  (Of course it also loses some capabilities).
> 
> It only solves it in the sense that it isn't capable of looping forever, so 
> there's never a question of whether or not a Bloop program will halt: they all 
> do. It doesn't have any capabilities that Floop lacks: Floop can solve any 
> problem that Bloop can solve, plus problems that Bloop cannot.
> 
> In a sense, it's a less extreme version of this:
> 
> Me: "I have here a computer which is immune to all computer viruses, malware 
> and hostile code, now and in the future!"
> 
> You: "That's great! Turn it on so we can see how it works."
> 
> Me: "Oh, it doesn't turn on. There's no power supply. That was the only way I 
> could guarantee it wouldn't execute malware: by making sure it couldn't execute 
> *anything*."
> 
> While I suppose it is true that a computer that doesn't run is still a 
> computer, its an abuse of language to say that it has capabilities that running 
> computers lack:
> 
> - unhackable
> - immune to all viruses
> - unaffected by power surges
> - data storage is 100% reliable, never lose data again
> - instantaneous log-off and shutdown
> 
> :-)

There he comes waddling in… Your  cute-n-cudly strawman!!
A more realistic analogy would be phones
The cellphones we use today often crash
The first nokia I used never crashed but could still run out of battery
And the round-dial landlines of 30 years ago had not even that problem

But correspondingly the functionality:
The early landlines could just dial a NUMBER (which you looked up from a 
dead-tree book)
The first cell phones had some rudimentary phone book
Nowadays phones do everything a computer can… Including crash!