Re: Eiffel syntax and the ';'

>Curtis Clauson wrote:
>As you can see, the EiffelStudio compiler error messages are quite explicit 
>about the cause of the error by mentioning the argument count and 
>displaying both involved source lines ...

I agree the EiffelStudio message is clearer than the SmartEiffel message.

I found, however, that even the EiffelStudio message is confusing, until I 
got used to the ';' problem. To Eiffel newbies, this error is inherently 
confusing, regardless of the wording. I don't think I understood the 
EiffelStudio error until after I had read the long thread on this issue in 
this mailing list a few months ago.

>However, if SmartEiffel expands its error messages in a manner similar to 
>EiffelStudio, I would prefer to see a lot less wasted vertical space and 
>better word-use and grammar than in EiffelStudio.

Indeed. That's one of my pet hates about EiffelStudio.

(By the way -- at the risk of being a bit off-topic for this SmartEiffel 
mailing list -- did you know that you can edit the EiffelStudio error 
messages? I've done so to make them more concise. See 
C:\Eiffel56\studio\help\errors\short.)

- Peter Gummer