Design question: Semicolons and import statements

[200sc]

I was surprised when writing some bebop schemas that:

import "./example.bop";

struct Test {
    string Field;
}

... did not compile -- Expected Enum or Struct or Message or Union or Service, but found ';' of kind Semicolon.

And

import "./example.bop"

struct Test {
    string Field
}

Also did not compile -- Expected Semicolon, but found '}' of kind CloseBrace

The rules are, in one way, consistent -- top level definitions do not use semicolons and field definitions do use semicolons -- but why care? Why enforce the use of semicolons at all? It's been demonstrated by compilers in the past (Javascript + Typescript)(Go) that you can remove the need for semicolons as above entirely by injecting a semicolon if they are required and not provided.

An additional point of inconsistency: based on the theoretical rule I stated above, this should compile, as it is a top level statement:

const bool boolconst = true

But we get: Expected Semicolon, but found '' of kind EndOfFile

Were bebop to remove the need for semicolons but still support their presence, it would be a backwards compatible change, and formatters could automatically remove all of them (or place them where they are allowed, if that's your preferred style).

[mattiekat]

@lynn I don't think this is technically a bug, but I do agree with @200sc, when I started writing bebop for the first time the semicolons confused me a bit. I could see making them optional since (correct me if I am wrong) there is no case where we actually need it.

[andrewmd5]

This is up next on my TODO