Syntax errors were common, as is the case with any language. The
commonest response to the statement ``I often made syntax errors like
missing colons and brackets'' was ``I agree'' (see
Figure 3.5. However, Python does have less ``punctuation''
than Pascal or C so lack of semi-colons at the end of lines seemed to
contribute to many student's appreciation of its syntactic clarity.
IDLEfork was again helpful: if a colon was missed off from the end of a
control statement header (e.g. the first line in a for loop or
after the condition in an if) it would not automatically indent
the next line as they expected. This set alarm bells ringing for many
students, who specifically mentioned this feature as something they
found useful.
