Timeline for Why are statements in many programming languages terminated by semicolons?
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56 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jul 1, 2018 at 12:06 | comment | added | gnasher729 | @RyanThompson Fortran and Cobol don't use semicolons, so the punch cards are unlikely to be the reason. | |
| Jul 1, 2018 at 5:12 | answer | added | BarbaraKwarc | timeline score: 0 | |
| Jan 9, 2016 at 10:14 | answer | added | Gangnus | timeline score: 0 | |
| Sep 18, 2014 at 10:02 | vote | accept | A Coder | ||
| Sep 18, 2014 at 10:02 | vote | accept | A Coder | ||
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| Jan 25, 2013 at 9:13 | history | rollback | A Coder |
Rollback to Revision 8
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| Apr 13, 2012 at 5:07 | comment | added | Amelse Etomer | @CesarGon, I second your comment! When switching from a German to an English keyboard, suddenly the have use of ; [ and { made sense, as they were not hard to access anymore at all. I think, most of them are chosen for practical reasons. (Accidently up-and-down-voted you, so I can't up you anymore.) | |
| Apr 13, 2012 at 4:33 | history | rollback | A Coder |
Rollback to Revision 7
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| Apr 6, 2012 at 6:32 | history | rollback | A Coder |
Rollback to Revision 6
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| Mar 30, 2012 at 4:15 | history | notice removed | A Coder | ||
| Mar 30, 2012 at 4:15 | history | bounty ended | A Coder | ||
| Mar 29, 2012 at 2:55 | answer | added | dan04 | timeline score: 6 | |
| Mar 28, 2012 at 10:31 | comment | added | yannis | @ACoder May I ask what's the point of the bounty? "The current answers do not contain enough detail." makes little sense, most of the answers are extremely detailed. | |
| Mar 28, 2012 at 10:27 | answer | added | James Anderson | timeline score: 2 | |
| Mar 26, 2012 at 12:38 | answer | added | Rinzwind | timeline score: 3 | |
| Mar 26, 2012 at 9:25 | history | notice added | A Coder | Improve details | |
| Mar 26, 2012 at 9:25 | history | bounty started | A Coder | ||
| Mar 22, 2012 at 18:44 | history | edited | Thomas Owens♦ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 58 characters in body
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| Mar 22, 2012 at 18:21 | history | reopened |
Rachel TheLQ psr CommunityBot gnat |
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| Mar 22, 2012 at 18:21 | history | edited | gnat | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
most -> many // http://meta.programmers.stackexchange.com/a/3348/31260
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| Mar 22, 2012 at 16:40 | history | edited | Rachel | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Want to clarify that this question is asking about programming history, and that it isn't just a question for mindless fun
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| Mar 20, 2012 at 12:33 | vote | accept | A Coder | ||
| Apr 5, 2012 at 10:06 | |||||
| Mar 17, 2012 at 13:54 | history | unlocked | CommunityBot | ||
| Mar 17, 2012 at 13:54 | history | notice removed | CommunityBot | ||
| Mar 16, 2012 at 13:11 | history | notice added | Thomas Owens♦ | Content dispute | |
| Mar 16, 2012 at 13:11 | history | locked | Thomas Owens♦ | ||
| Mar 16, 2012 at 13:02 | history | closed | Thomas Owens♦ | not constructive | |
| Mar 16, 2012 at 13:02 | history | notice removed | Thomas Owens♦ | ||
| Mar 16, 2012 at 13:02 | comment | added | Thomas Owens♦ | I have closed this question based on the quality of answers, comments on the question, and moderator flags to prevent further answers pending a discussion on our Meta site. | |
| Mar 16, 2012 at 13:00 | comment | added | CesarGon | @wim: In some keyboard layouts only. My Spanish keyboard has it in the bottom row, and needs Shift. | |
| Mar 16, 2012 at 12:08 | comment | added | mouviciel |
If statements were terminated by another symbol, say §, would it have prevented you from asking a similar question?
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| Mar 16, 2012 at 11:54 | answer | added | Uday Reddy | timeline score: 7 | |
| Mar 16, 2012 at 10:51 | answer | added | Basav | timeline score: -1 | |
| Mar 15, 2012 at 14:55 | answer | added | AProgrammer | timeline score: -1 | |
| Mar 15, 2012 at 11:32 | comment | added | jasonk | I doubt there was a 14-hour marathon lock-in meeting with transparencies and multiple vendors to agree on the solution. Someone just did it and it stuck, simple as that. I'm with Ryan. Also if somebody answers "does it even matter" I will be tempted to upvote it. There's been a few history-related questions I've seen here lately and frankly I think these are all accidents of the past. | |
| Mar 15, 2012 at 11:11 | history | notice added | A Coder | Improve details | |
| Mar 15, 2012 at 6:38 | comment | added | wim | Because it's on the home row of a qwerty keyboard? | |
| Mar 15, 2012 at 2:53 | comment | added | Manishearth | More on semicolons: abstrusegoose.com/445 | |
| Mar 14, 2012 at 14:16 | comment | added | schellack | LISP uses semicolons to denote comments. | |
| Mar 14, 2012 at 10:09 | comment | added | Konrad Rudolph | Your question doesn’t go far enough. The real question is, “why any symbol at all?” | |
| Mar 13, 2012 at 19:47 | comment | added | Ryan C. Thompson | I'll bet the answer will turn out to be something like "the ASCII value of the semicolon is particularly durable when used as the last character on an 80-character punch-card." | |
| Mar 13, 2012 at 19:30 | answer | added | Fake Name | timeline score: 1 | |
| Mar 13, 2012 at 18:35 | comment | added | knivil | I wonder how many programming languages do you know. There are lots of languages that do not use semicolons. | |
| Mar 13, 2012 at 16:49 | comment | added | Dave Clarke | Erlang and prolog use fullstops. | |
| Mar 13, 2012 at 15:47 | answer | added | Jerry Coffin | timeline score: 14 | |
| Mar 13, 2012 at 15:15 | answer | added | Ryathal | timeline score: 6 | |
| Mar 13, 2012 at 14:50 | answer | added | John R. Strohm | timeline score: 55 | |
| Mar 13, 2012 at 13:00 | history | edited | Jon Purdy | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Title fixup for searchability.
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| Mar 13, 2012 at 12:05 | history | notice added | ChrisF | Needs detailed answers | |
| Mar 13, 2012 at 11:52 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/#!/StackProgrammer/status/179535336928591872 | ||
| Mar 13, 2012 at 10:10 | history | edited | ChrisF | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
grammar in title
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| S Mar 13, 2012 at 9:53 | history | suggested | Dynamic | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
general fixes
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| Mar 13, 2012 at 9:50 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Mar 13, 2012 at 9:53 | |||||
| Mar 13, 2012 at 9:48 | answer | added | uɐɪ | timeline score: 134 | |
| Mar 13, 2012 at 9:42 | answer | added | Oded | timeline score: 70 | |
| Mar 13, 2012 at 9:37 | history | asked | A Coder | CC BY-SA 3.0 |