[erlang-questions] Erlang Syntax - again

[Michael FIG]

Hi,

If I could change just one thing about Erlang's syntax, I would want to allow an optional semicolon before a "case" expression's "end", just so I could do:

case myfun(abc) of
    zot -> bar;
    zing -> baz;
end,

and swap the "zot" and "zing" lines without getting a compilation error.

Following this through to its natural (but uglier) conclusion would be to allow trailing commas in -record definitions, -export and -import lists, and before a "fun" expression's "end".

In short, I have never thanked the compiler for pointing out to me that I forgot that a statement was the last one in a comma or semicolon-separated list.  If there was a nice-looking way to terminate a top-level function without putting a period behind the return value, I'd suggest that too, but I can't think of any.

These changes are all motivated because I use an editor where cutting and pasting a single line is really easy, but manipulating punctuation is not.

Thanks for listening,

-- 
Michael FIG <fig@REDACTED>, PMP
MarkeTel Multi-Line Dialing Systems, Ltd.
Phone: (306) 359-6893 ext. 528