> It's hard to understand why Ruby would allow semicolons to be optional but not "end" keywords.

There's necessarily a newline where the semicolon would be no? This makes the ommission of semicolons more of an obvious choice to me than removing ends.

> My best guess (and personal reason toe against such an option) is that it would add complexity
> to programming and maintaining Ruby code without actually providing new functionality (it would only
> add a new syntax option).

+1: you don't want to mire the progress of a language by constantly seeking backward compatibility, but at the same time it seems like a _lot_ of upheaval for a small change.

> Any time any language change is proposed, one could use the same argument: there is <language_that_contains_feature_x>
> for those who want feature x.I want the Ruby language, but I think it might well be improved by making a change.

+1: new to Ruby and the list, so hope I'm not too rude in saying I'm not impressed with some of the attitudes of 'piss offnd use a different language'. Everything's discussable!

> There is simply no perfect programming language. If one would exist it would be the only programming language
> and we would all be using it.

IMHO if that logic was right, then you're effectively saying all software studios are using the best tools for the job?! Popularity isn't the gauge of utility. 

> Maybe any code in any language should be stored in some generic form meta language (we would have enough space to
> store it now - car crysis left enough oil to create magnetic tapes) and the _Editor_ provides the view which best fits to the
> current developer. (Example: translate keyword to japanese signs, direction of writing a.s.o.)

Love it! Be interested to see anyone playing with that idea in any language. It'd certainly solve the endless debate.

A.