Mike Friedman <friedo@...> wrote:

> here's a dumb question: why did the original FOR loop use the word FOR?

If I remember right (I may not!) my paleocypherology, FOR slithered
forth in ye olden days of ALGOL in the form:
   FOR x = m TO n DO:
(later extended by Annheiser to "for all you do: this Bud's for you").
Then the DO was dropped.

In my experience, BASIC dialects which do an iteration when m>n are
rare. But then, they were all sloooooooow.

After two whole months with FB, I agree with the original poster that
the LONG IF form can get clumsy quickly, and that the addition of
ELSEIF, allowing structures like:
  LONG IF
  ELSEIF
  ELSEIF
  XELSE
  END IF 
would be helpful, certainly to those of us arriving from the many
languages that support this structure. But given the choice between LONG
IF and the endless punctuation of C, no contest. Let'em snicker.

-- Tony
<http://www.oz.net/~ars/> NF MIDI Rock Mac