Crockford on Bootstrap's semicolon omission: “insanely stupid code”

Post by ExpiredLink » Sun, Apr 15, 2012, 9:41 AM UTC

gfodor wrote: post #33

There's something horribly wrong with everything about this. Why is such a smart person as Crockford wasting his time arguing about semicolons in 2012? Why is this at the top of the most popular hacker website? Why are people writing detailed opinions about semicolons in this thread (with surely more to come?) One would hope that at least over time the bike sheds being argued about would start to at least evolve into…

Post by hhhhhhhhh » Sun, Apr 15, 2012, 9:47 AM UTC

YuriNiyazov wrote: post #7

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #4

Crockford's stance is annoying purely because it's pedantic and because there are many libraries that embrace this style. We use django_compressor and found bugs from the compressor that uses Jsmin. So I have to use something else to compress them before hand. Are there compressors that use the syntax tree rather than transforming the source?

Is there any particular reason why you refuse to put in the semicolons in Javascript?

Post by jhuni » Sun, Apr 15, 2012, 9:49 AM UTC

rtomayko wrote: post #71

fusiongyro wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you parse this expression without parentheses? a && b && c || d || e + f > g && h The parser sure can. Do you have all the operator precedences memorized, or do you use superfluous parentheses because you're not always sure? It's true that the semicolon is not needed, and it's true that the minifier is breaking code. It may even be true that Crockford should fix it. But that doesn't change the fact that the omit-…

Do you use parenthesis to denote order of operations in all cases, even when extremely obvious? If not, should we assume your position is absurdly immature hipster posturing that serves no engineering purpose?

Post by reinhardt » Sun, Apr 15, 2012, 9:52 AM UTC

crystalis wrote: post #127

malandrew wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? This unfortunate behavior is well described by Wadler's Law: http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Wadlers_Law

Few people truly understand the semantics of a language, but everyone knows why indexing from 1 is bad.

Post by pepve » Sun, Apr 15, 2012, 9:57 AM UTC

isntitvacant wrote: post #118

btilly wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is what you're missing. Language lawyering is fine and dandy when you know exactly which compiler will be used and you know exactly how it works. But on the web that isn't the case. You can write code, but you have no control over what browsers, past, present and future, it will get run on. And it is your responsibility to make that work. According to the spec, you may be right. But in practice you're the one wh…

In this case, it's not language lawyering. All JavaScript environments "do the right thing" with regards to ASI -- it works in all target environments as of the present day. JSMin is not a target environment, it is a minifier that happens to express some strongly-held opinions of its author. That said, it's hard to program to a spec that does not (officially) exist yet, and doubly so if there's not clear "opt-in/out"…