Related to BOO-496, the boo parser doesn't distinguish between semicolons and newlines. It also doesn't distinguish single from multiple semicolons. It allows code like below. It needs some rewriting to clean things up after BOO-496 is committed. namespace CompactStatements;;;;;;;import System;import System.IO; class C:;""" a docstring""" def doit():; print "ok" def doit2():;"""another docstring"""; pass def doit4(): print "ok";;;;;;;;;; //not allowed in python print "ok"