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The melancholy decline of the semicolon

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Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#141
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)

I'm pretty happy with the choices made in rust and python. Just want to note that the : in Python is just as superfluous (as rubyists will tell you) and kept only for readability, not for parsing.

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automated tools get in my way of thinking. I turn off intellisense, auto-formatters, etc... I'll run auto tools during check-in, but not during coding sessions.

> I turn off intellisense Unless you are doing this for performance reasons, this one I'll never understand. I'd much rather type "x.someP" and hit tab then type in "x.somePropertyThatHasARidiculousNameIAlwaysForget" after having to consult the documentation yet again to get the name.

I already know what I want to type. Having something pop up with "suggestions", often obscuring the lines I need to read, is worthless to me at best and disruptive of my thinking at worst.

If I can't recall "x.somePropertyThatHasARidiculousNameIAlwaysForget" then there are other more serious problems.

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automated tools get in my way of thinking. I turn off intellisense, auto-formatters, etc... I'll run auto tools during check-in, but not during coding sessions.

No find and replace, either? ;)

I use those. But how would those be automated exactly? How would they know what I want to find and replace?

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing `Mr.' is like writing `3rd.': the point in abbreviations is an ellipsis, but there is nothing after the `r' in `Mister'.

M'r?

This makes the most sense. Like Ma’am for Madam.

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#145
There are the rules, and then there is the intuitive rationale that a writer finds for using a certain grammatical form. The improved quality of writer’s writing is often premised upon these rationales. If the rationale is intuitive to the writer, it is likely that the reader’s cognitive overhead will be reduced as well. This contributes to a reader’s truly felt pleasure when they realize what they’re reading is good.

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I turn off intellisense Unless you are doing this for performance reasons, this one I'll never understand. I'd much rather type "x.someP" and hit tab then type in "x.somePropertyThatHasARidiculousNameIAlwaysForget" after having to consult the documentation yet again to get the name.

I already know what I want to type. Having something pop up with "suggestions", often obscuring the lines I need to read, is worthless to me at best and disruptive of my thinking at worst. If I can't recall "x.somePropertyThatHasARidiculousNameIAlwaysForget" then there are other more serious problems.

> If I can't recall "x.somePropertyThatHasARidiculousNameIAlwaysForget" then there are other more serious problems.

I just prefer to press less keys. It shouldn't obscure anything in a decent IDE.

Often you are working with other people's code and having to "recall" every single property, method, etc declared is not practical, hence why I mentioned having to keep referring to the documentation for things you are not accessing very often.

If I keep forgetting that a property is .lastname and not .lastName in a library I'm using I can just type "last" and press tab.

This is even more crucial in dynamic languages like JS, where you will get a failure at runtime and not compile time.

It doesn't make you any "less of a programmer", it makes you a more efficient one once you are used to it.

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#147

I use them a lot to control the tone of what I write. Since periods can indicate a serious or angry tone[1], I often need some other way to indicate a separation between two complete sentences. For example: "It looks like you forgot to do X; that's needed to do Y." Using a period could be perceived as anger, but using a comma would make that sentence a comma splice. [1] https://youtu.be/fS4X1JfX6_Q?t=3m3s

Heh, I think my daughters generation will just replace them with emojis.

Re: The melancholy decline of the semicolon

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing `Mr.' is like writing `3rd.': the point in abbreviations is an ellipsis, but there is nothing after the `r' in `Mister'.

Well yes, it should really be Mʳ and 3ʳᵈ. The latter is still in common use, the former not so much.

Agreed. References to occurrences of M^r are welcome.
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