Syntax for parseability

Fascinating - VB, which doesn't require brackets round the expression following 'if', won't allow you to create a subroutine or function called 'then'.

This is presumably because it can't, like the C family, use the trailing ) to tell where the expression ends, and wants to assume that 'then' on the end of a line that began 'if' always delimits it. Btw I see you can't have a variable called 'if' in C.

And Perl throws a syntax error at "$a--5", you have to put "$a- -5". Fascinating.

Even more fascinatingly, mingw C won't accept a--5. I've been expecting far too much of my own expression evaluators.