I remember reading in Douglas Crockford's "Javascript the Good Parts" book that there is potential for error with blockless statements because of automatic semicolon insertion.
if (condition)
foo = true;
vs
if (condition)
{
foo = true;
}
In the second the example it will work consistently, in the first example a semicolon will be automatically inserted by the interpreter and can lead to ambiguity in the code. As Douglas points out this is potentially bad and hard to debug, which I agree. But it got me thinking are there examples where coding "style" actually has syntax implications? In other words, examples where failing to follow a certain indentation or apparent style actually results in a bug or error. I suppose Python with its significant whitespace is an example, YML with its requirement for no tabs is another.
Feel free to respond in a wide variety of languages and idioms. I am curious to hear about the paradigm cases. In your answer I would like to know the WHAT and the WHY of the coding style or syntax behavior. I don't want to start any coding style flame wars, just matter of fact scenarios where the uninitiated would get tripped up.
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Link to original article：https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1248560/is-coding-style-mostly-for-readability-or-are-there-other-factors