Why Pascal is not my favorite programming language (1981) [pdf]

> Pascal, in common with most other Algol-inspired languages, uses the semicolon as a statement separator rather than a terminator (as it is in PL/I and C). As a result one must have a reasonably sophisticated notion of what a statement is to put semicolons in properly.

I wonder how the non-programmers succeed to write commas correctly, because those follow the same logic: e.g. "red, green, blue". In author's opinion, I guess it should be "red, green, blue," instead.

Have you ever used a Pascal compiler that's strict about this? It's surprisingly annoying even today. Now imagine it's 1981 and you're editing your programs with a line editor. In C code, you can freely swap lines around. If you try the same in Pascal code, you'll spend a lot of time fixing up semicolons.

> I wonder how the non-programmers succeed to write commas correctly

Usually they don't.