Re: pl/pgsql: END verbosity

On Wed, Jun 22, 2005 at 09:23:17AM -0700, Steve Atkins wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 23, 2005 at 01:41:49AM +1000, Neil Conway wrote:
> > Andrew Dunstan wrote:
> > >But this doesn't make it easier to use - users don't just include those who
> > >write it. The antecedent language of these, Ada, from which this syntax
> > >comes, was explicitly designed to be reader-friendly as opposed to
> > >writer-friendly, and this is a part of that.
> > 
> > IMHO it is just needless verbiage that makes programs both harder to 
> > read *and* harder to write, albeit marginally so. I think there is a 
> > reason why Ada-style block terminators are in the minority among 
> > block-structured languages :)
> > 
> > But obviously this is a matter of taste -- does anyone else like or 
> > dislike the current syntax?
> 
> "Like" is a bit strong. But it does make functions written in it easier
> to read. And given that the primary debugging methodolofy for pl/pgsql
> is "Look at it hard and see what might be incorrect" I can't see that
> as a bad thing.

Yeah, while we don't have good debugging support in pl/pgsql we
shouldn't be making it harder to read.  (FWIW, yes, I think it's useful
for those keywords to be required when you have to look at homongous
functions.)

-- 
Alvaro Herrera (<alvherre[a]surnet.cl>)
"No renuncies a nada. No te aferres a nada."