🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <ACHA.91Jan11151418@DRAVIDO.CS.CMU.EDU>, acha@CS.CMU.EDU (Anurag Acharya) writes:
> In article <1991Jan11.100048.3121@odin.diku.dk> sestoft@diku.dk (Peter Sestoft) writes:
>    The main difference between Miranda (TM) and Lazy ML is the syntax.
>    In Miranda the program lay-out has semantics: the off-side rule
>    determines where an expression ends, whereas (Lazy) ML has more
>    Pascal-like conventions, using semicolons similar punctuation.  (The
>    off-side rule was suggested by Peter Landin in the sixties).  

> What is the justification for this "off-side" rule ? The idea of whitespace 
> having semantics is a potential source of inscrutable bugs and, frankly 
> speaking, seems to go against the grain of modern programming language
> design.

Could some one post a summary explanation of the off-side rule, please?
I am working with a language called Lakota which, like ICON, uses indentation
for delimiting blocks, so the idea of layout being meaningful is familiar.
However this is a syntactical use of white space rather than a semantic
use, at least as far as I can see, and is not particularly novel.
I would also be interested in hearing what the purported advantages of
the off-side rule are.

-- 
Richard Harter, Software Maintenance and Development Systems, Inc.
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