[pcwalton]

"continue" is very long (out of place with the rest of the keywords), "again" was quite unpopular ("next" is out in a systems language due to linked lists), and the construct isn't used very often anyway (just a handful of places).

A lot of people like languages with small sets of keywords (for example, Python, Lua, or Go). It helps you keep the whole language in your head. We wanted to replicate that.

[Jare]

I understand, and I can only imagine all the debates about naming, which programmers seem to love.

My point is just that by multiplexing a keyword, you shift the cost from one-time in-head knowledge of two keywords, to having to look at the context every time the keyword appears.

My personal preference is to reduce the cost of reading code above everything else (which is what turned me off the otherwise wonderful to write CoffeeScript, for example).

[hamstergene]

for-while-break-continue is such a standard, I still don't see what justifies breaking it. (Do you really have less-than-N-characters rule? :) ) That fact that `continue` doesn't appear often is exactly why it has never been annoying to type.

What if there are three nested loops, two of which contain if-cond-then-continue, wouldn't the new syntax be too ambiguous?