And simpler to parse has another benefit Given an effort X spent writing the parser, users of the language get better error messages

Also, I do not think of those semicolons as noise They make text easier to parse for humans, too That's why you see most people end sentences, paragraphs and HN posts with a 'superfluous' period

EDIT: Some people will find the above quite readable I am somewhat in that camp Problem is, however, that in English and other languages capitals like I and E are not guaranteed to be sentence starters That muddles the waters considerably Many programming languages have worse problems.