Path: csiph.com!usenet.pasdenom.info!weretis.net!feeder4.news.weretis.net!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!mx04.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: markspace <-@.> Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.programmer Subject: Re: Assigning void Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2012 11:51:42 -0700 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 37 Message-ID: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2012 18:51:45 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: mx04.eternal-september.org; posting-host="61282af8d6595e8d991edb5ac03d6e00"; logging-data="20761"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/8ViWKMt5rVYRnqnq/qoTov0dyacRTx9g=" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:16.0) Gecko/20121010 Thunderbird/16.0.1 In-Reply-To: Cancel-Lock: sha1:8yrySzh+RF3i9A3+klqJrDW8b0c= Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.java.programmer:19286 On 10/12/2012 10:54 PM, Wojtek wrote: > both ftp methods return void. I would think that the compiler would > be smart enough to realize that nothing CAN be returned. On 10/13/2012 11:26 AM, Jeff Higgins wrote: > Does it sound childish to ask why? The way the OP puts it, yes, it comes across as a bit childish. The OP didn't ask "why," he asked for "thoughts." My thought is "read the JLS." I realize *you* asked why, but in the vein of the OP's premise, I feel "read the spec" is a valid answer. "Why" requires reading someone's mind, and time travel. Since those are obviously impossible, the result borders on trolling. I'd guess that the original intent and the current thinking is that Java should be "easy to read" and that shortening branch flow to a single character pushes somebody's Perl buttons, but that's a total guess. What about this: (some large expression || some other large expression ) ? { Statement; Statement; Statement; } : { Statement; Statement; Statement; } ? Do we really want to go there?