[Haskell-cafe] Language simplicity

[Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH]

On Jan 13, 2010, at 03:49 , Martin Coxall wrote:
> COBOL: Over 400 (!)


If we're going to go that far, FORTRAN and PL/1 have none.  FORTRAN is  
somewhat infamous for this:  "DO 10 I = 1, 400" is a loop start, "DO  
10 I = 1. 400" (note typo, "." for ",") parses as the assignment  
"DO10I = 1.400".  (This is often cited as the cause of the failure of  
Mariner 1, but that's an urban legend.  See http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/9.54.html#subj1.1 
  for discussion, including the possible origin of this UL.)

-- 
brandon s. allbery [solaris,freebsd,perl,pugs,haskell] allbery at kf8nh.com
system administrator [openafs,heimdal,too many hats] allbery at ece.cmu.edu
electrical and computer engineering, carnegie mellon university    KF8NH


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