Neil Heller wrote in a message to Jasen Betts:

JB> it seems to me to usually at least warn somewhere near the actual
JB> it mistake. may take a while longer for the damage to accumulate
JB> enough to cause an error.

 NH> It seems that the error message is always the same:

 NH> Parse error before x.

I kept hitting that one a bit earlier,  then found that I'd inadvertently
typed a ':' where I wanted a ';'...

Helps if you're using an editor that does syntax highlighing and similar
stuff, which is a relatively new one for me,  too.  If I'd been paying
better attention the different color would've made it more apparent to me.

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