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The melancholy decline of the semicolon

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Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#101

Post by gryfft »

Veen wrote: post #90
gryfft wrote: post #26

This article does not demonstrate understanding of the semicolon; it is used incorrectly in the first sentence, for crying out loud.

It uses the semi-colon to join independent clauses instead of a conjunction, which is fine. It might otherwise have read, “The semicolon is a profound public mystery, and the only punctuation mark that…”. Nevertheless, it isn’t a great showcase for the semi-colon’s usefulness. The writer could have invented a more elegant example to begin the article; the one they chose is a prime example of a semi-colon that adds li…

The second phrase is not an independent clause, which is the issue.

> the only punctuation mark that regularly unites readers and writers in deep-seated repugnance

There is not a subject and a verb; this is a fragment and does not stand alone. Prepending "it is" to the second clause would make this a proper sentence by making the second clause an independent clause instead of merely a noun modified by an adjectival prepositional phrase.

Edit: I nerdsniped myself and it might not be strictly accurate to call it a prepositional phrase; 'that' is technically a conjunction in this case used to link its own subordinate clause, but that subordinate clause still does not complete the clause fragment whose subject is "[punctuation] mark." It's still just a modified noun.

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#102

Post by zuj »

Denvercoder9 wrote: post #89
zuj wrote: post #77

Completely off topic but, after doing python for ages, recently started writing Rust and semicolon does seems useless. We are doing the indentation and new lines anyway, why not just make them as default language construct as python does. (autodidact developer here, feel free to ELI5 and enlighten me)

It's a trade-off. You can either assume all statements end at the end of the line, and require a continuation character (backslash in Python) if that isn't the case; or you can require a statement terminator (semicolon/closing brace in Rust) for all statements. The downside of assuming statements end at the end of the line is that you need to have special rules for when that isn't the case (such as Python's implicit…

Thanks, this makes perfect sense. Python we are using \n instead of ; as the statement terminator.

Just didn't got what you mean by "python's implicit statement continuation inside braces" ?

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#103

Post by zuj »

vvillena wrote: post #85
zuj wrote: post #77

Completely off topic but, after doing python for ages, recently started writing Rust and semicolon does seems useless. We are doing the indentation and new lines anyway, why not just make them as default language construct as python does. (autodidact developer here, feel free to ELI5 and enlighten me)

Rust uses the semicolon to distinguish between statements and expressions.

Yes, coming from python it took a while for me to wrap my head around this.

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#104

Post by the__alchemist »

zuj wrote: post #77

Completely off topic but, after doing python for ages, recently started writing Rust and semicolon does seems useless. We are doing the indentation and new lines anyway, why not just make them as default language construct as python does. (autodidact developer here, feel free to ELI5 and enlighten me)

In Rust, omitting a semicolon has a special meaning, ie a return from an expression. So, you can't just ditch it.

I wouldn't mind Python's whitespace indents in Rust though!

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#105

Post by zuj »

Tyr42 wrote: post #81
zuj wrote: post #77

Completely off topic but, after doing python for ages, recently started writing Rust and semicolon does seems useless. We are doing the indentation and new lines anyway, why not just make them as default language construct as python does. (autodidact developer here, feel free to ELI5 and enlighten me)

Well, have you ever run into the x = some_long_expression + another_long_expression problem? In Python you need to be careful to wrap that in () or use a \ before the newline to avoid it parsing as two lines, e.g. x = some_long_expression; + another_long_expression; In particular, if you have a builder expressions let x = someBuilder() .setVal(x) .build() You'd need to wrap the entire thing in () to avoid it getting…

Love the examples, thanks for ELI5.

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#107

Post by Symbiote »

mdp2021 wrote: post #62
minimilian wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you mean `full-stop' in your 2nd paragraph, or are you ascribing a double role to the colon and ignoring the full-stop? According to Fowler (The King's English), there was a time when the difference between , ; : . was merely quantitative (which explains the name `semicolon').

Thank you! Now corrected. Informally: incredibly, one reads and re-reads, edits multiple times in a span of hours, and still leaves errors and imprecisions. Of course it was the period or "full-stop" - in reading, also as I had defined the colon differently in the next paragraph... By the way, you made me note that 'full-stop' is British English and 'period' is American English. As some of us prefer to write in Inter…

"UN English" generally follows British/Oxford usage, although there are a few exceptions: writing "Mr." with the full stop, "sulfur" rather than "sulphur", "1.30 pm" (not 1:30 pm or 13:30) etc.

I think it's a decent compromise. All the Zs make it look weird to British readers, and all the Us make it look weird to Americans.

https://www.un.org/dgacm/en/content/editorial-manual/punctua... ("full stop").

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#108

Post by 1121redblackgo »

revolvingocelot wrote: post #60
wruza wrote: post #38

I’ve read some shelves in my life, and from a reader’s perspective a good read has never made me think about what punctuation the author used. This is an inside nonsense which only worries idling writers and critics.

>a good read has never made me think about what punctuation the author used I can with certainty conclude that you have never ever read any Cormac McCarthy or Charles Dickens, and you should, if only to illustrate each extreme of the milieu which you've thus far ignored.

My goal was to read one book this year after reading none the previous couple years. My friend and I chose Blood Meridian >< and it has been a challenging foray back into the hobby/reading life that I am not sure I would choose again. Good book though for sure.

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#110

Post by NoSorryCannot »

post-it wrote: post #99
zuj wrote: post #77

Completely off topic but, after doing python for ages, recently started writing Rust and semicolon does seems useless. We are doing the indentation and new lines anyway, why not just make them as default language construct as python does. (autodidact developer here, feel free to ELI5 and enlighten me)

In Rust, a block that ends with an expression without a semicolon returns that expression. It lets you write terse things like let x = if y { a } else { b }

Kotlin does the same but without semicolons so it would seem not to be essential.
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