251–260 of 260 posts
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A semicolon in Lisp starts a comment. Despite how bad some comments can be, I kinda doubt comments are the source of all evil in general.
To be fair, it can be a bit terrifying to read a Lisp form that even the author thought required a comment.
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I’m not sure that time is passed. I was in college only ten years ago, and my English professor’s key insight to punctuation is that it’s to define framing and tempo for your sentences. That the sequence you listed is the pause count — similar to different empty spaces in music. Punctuation is just the negative space to frame your thoughts! And perhaps a bit of tonality.
That's nice to hear: but do you often see the colon used that way?
I would say I see it for that kind of use semi-routinely in long form posts.
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Whereas, how would you evaluate the image you would project, by not using semicolons (or anything that would fall into this matter of use, appropriateness and possible reactions) when appropriate, or by refusing to do it to follow the use of some not better defined writers, or for fear of the judgement of some very generically mentioned public? Which kind of public are you courting?
Write with semicolons or wear a fedora and I can make a few (likely accurate) guesses about who you are. Either you’re OK with giving off those vibes or not. Personally, I’m not. So I’d rather just not use semicolons.
(I.e. not "OK with giving off those vibes", I guess)
See, I don't much care what vibes I give off. If people don't like my "vibes", I find different people to associate with. I don't pair my fedora with a snappy costume; I've always been a slob as far as clothes are concerned.
In fact I was complimented only yesterday on my "ensemble", which consisted of a leather bomber jacket with a lumberjack shirt hanging out, a pair of baggy training pants, and a hat. My instinctive (and rather rude) response was that I don't wear "ensembles", that this was just random strips of fabric I had stapled to my body when I rolled out of bed.
I'm not Hemingway, although I do appreciate the value of short sentences for making prose clear and easy-to-understand. I'm not a punctuation nazi; I don't think less of people for not using the same style of punctuation and sentence-construction that I do.
I think your "likely accurate" guesses about who I am are probably wildly inaccurate, given that you've based them on a single 5-line post to a web forum. FWIW, I have no idea who you are, or what kind of person you are, except that you seem to be inclined to jump to conclusions based on scant evidence.
"The semicolon is a profound public mystery; the only punctuation mark that regularly unites readers and writers in deep-seated repugnance." That sentence should have used a colon, not a semi-colon, IIANM. The digital world churns; Twitter is not an arena known for reflection. Semicolons, then, are snottily elitist and shadily indirect. The elitist snottiness is in assuming people live their lives on Twitter and the…
> That sentence should have used a colon, not a semi-colon, IIANM. I think you are mistaken. The two clauses are full sentences. They could have been separated by a full-stop/period, but the semi-colon makes them part of the same "thought".
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Colon isn't a type of pause; at least, I only ever use it to introduce lists. I don't use it for timing or tonality. This discussion makes it painfully clear to me that I over-punctuate. I mean, I knew I leant more towards elaborate sentence-construction than is fashionable; I've never liked txt-speak, and my thumbs are too fat and flabby for operating miniature virtual keyboards. I try to write literate emails. That…
> Colon isn't a type of pause It also is a type of vocal intention. Are you acquainted with John Cleese playing the "Hungarian gentleman with phrase book" in the Monty Python sketch? «I will not buy this record [mounting pause, then release] it is scratched». The first part is preliminary, incomplete, it requires the second, expressed as a release after the mounting premise: the sentence is pronounced as having a col…
It sounds as if you are saying that /colon/ is a pause, because in your Cleese reference, he pronounces a /colon/. If that's what you meant, then are you not begging the question? You assume that his pause was a /colon/, and conclude that /colon/ means a pause.
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Write with semicolons or wear a fedora and I can make a few (likely accurate) guesses about who you are. Either you’re OK with giving off those vibes or not. Personally, I’m not. So I’d rather just not use semicolons.
> Personally, I’m not. (I.e. not "OK with giving off those vibes", I guess) See, I don't much care what vibes I give off. If people don't like my "vibes", I find different people to associate with. I don't pair my fedora with a snappy costume; I've always been a slob as far as clothes are concerned. In fact I was complimented only yesterday on my "ensemble", which consisted of a leather bomber jacket with a lumberjac…
Maybe, maybe not. But I could've predicted your entire response nearly word for word.
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To be fair, it can be a bit terrifying to read a Lisp form that even the author thought required a comment.
Why? Code requires comments regardless of language in order to explain the why as opposed to the what . See e.g. https://github.com/sbcl/sbcl/search?q=kludge for examples.
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I agree with most of what you said, but not that you shouldn't be able to find a good example. If the only good time for it is when it doesn't matter, that sounds like the worst and most pretentious parts of literature.
It is not clear to me how you could interpret my reply as being an admission that "the only good time for it is when it doesn't matter" - my claim is something quite different, that it makes a difference in a way that does not lead to great examples. Are there great examples, as you put it, of the use of the comma? If not, should we conclude that it doesn't matter and should be replaced with something else? A period,…
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> Colon isn't a type of pause It also is a type of vocal intention. Are you acquainted with John Cleese playing the "Hungarian gentleman with phrase book" in the Monty Python sketch? «I will not buy this record [mounting pause, then release] it is scratched». The first part is preliminary, incomplete, it requires the second, expressed as a release after the mounting premise: the sentence is pronounced as having a col…
> the sentence is pronounced as having a colon It sounds as if you are saying that /colon/ is a pause, because in your Cleese reference, he pronounces a /colon/. If that's what you meant, then are you not begging the question? You assume that his pause was a /colon/, and conclude that /colon/ means a pause.
There is no assumption: it is an obstension. There is no conclusion: it remains an obstension. That I mentioned of Cleese's acting, is an example.
I fail to see how you could read that pseudo-logic in that post. Do not use that poor pattern as a universal key: it is not.
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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…
> In Python you need to be careful to wrap that in () or use a \ I guess that's because in the REPL Python need's to know whether the line has finished yet or not. OCaml and F# uses two semicolons ';;' for that purpose, but only in the REPL. In Haskell you can use braces and semicolons or '{:' and ':}' in the REPL.