Re: Why is "then" required in the if statement?

[Matt Campbell <mattcampbell@...>]

> I'd guess most people would find "if foo then bar end" more readable 
> than "if foo bar end".

If readability of one-liners is that important, then I suggest that "if 
(foo) bar end" is better than either.  Of course, I'm not suggesting 
that Lua require parentheses around the condition; it's up to the 
programmer to decide where parentheses would be helpful.  Anyway, while 
a language design can encourage readability, it shouldn't attempt to 
force readability; that's the programmer's job.  Rather, a language 
design should encourage both readability and succinctness.  For 
multi-line if statements, I think that:

if foo
  bar
end

is quite readable, and less cluttered than

if foo then
  bar
end

albeit by just one keyword.

Besides, sometimes I forget the "then" keyword.

Matt