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Brendan Eich: The infernal semicolon

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Re: Brendan Eich: The infernal semicolon

#91

Post by raganwald »

jerf wrote: post #77
ronaldj wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a great analogy.

That's a terrible analogy. What's the analog for receiving a syntax error instead when you "forget your keys"? The analogy gives you bizarre and wrong choices and tradeoffs. As usual, analogies do more harm than good, especially when understanding a relatively simple technical issue.

You forget your keys, the super doesn’t let you in, you’re locked out. That’s the equivalent of a syntax error.

On another topic, this isn’t really a technical issue, it’s a people issue. Everyone understands what the JS interpreter’s behaviour is, what Bootstrap.js does, and why JSMin doesn’t minify it. What is being discussed here is what choices people make to please themselves and others as opposed to the compiler.

If @fat didn’t care about people, he’d use semicolons and JSMin would compile Bootstrap. If Crockford didn’t care about people, JSMin would compile Bootstrap just the way it is. When we’re talking about multiple ways of writing code that does the same thing, it’s almost entirely about people and not technical considerations.

Re: Brendan Eich: The infernal semicolon

#92

Post by tzs »

nhebb wrote: post #86
cletus wrote: post #33

Heh, I was waiting for this post. Coming in the next 24 hours: - "Why I use minimal semi-colons in Javascript" - "ASI is broken but I like it" Honestly I'm shocked at the defense of this practice (of ASI "abusage"). It speaks loudly to Jacob's (fat@githib) ranking of ego-stroking and showboating over creating readable code, particularly for a library "Designed for everyone, everywhere" [1]. I'm confounded that such a…

The GitHub style guide recommends the opposite: "Do your best to never use a semicolon. This means avoiding them at line breaks and avoiding multi-statement lines. For more info, read Mislav's blog post [2]." FWIW, I agree with the Google style guide. Maybe I'm interpreting it wrong, but ASI struck me as a fail-safe to protect coders that forgot the occasional semicolon and was later mis-identified as a feature. Havi…

That blog post they cite includes this:

   My advice on JSLint: don’t use it. Why would
   you use it? If you believed that it helps you
   have less bugs in your code, here’s a newsflash;
   only people can detect and solve software bugs,
   not tools. So instead of tools, get more people
   to look at your code.
Unless I'm missing something, that easily qualifies as the dumbest thing I've read on the net in the last week--and I've been to /r/politics.

Re: Brendan Eich: The infernal semicolon

#94

Post by geoffschmidt »

tolmasky wrote: post #31
magicalist wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, he's acknowledged many times (including in this post) that it was a mistake. That was the intention, but it wasn't successful. It should have gone all in (no semicolons at all) or not have existed.

I think it was a reasonable decision at the time. The idea was that JavaScript was not going to be some language people wrote hundreds of thousands of lines of code in, and that the target audience would become frustrated if the language didn't "help" them. For example, if JavaScript truly were to always require semicolons at the end of lines then that means this would be a syntax error: ... > Error, missing semicolo…

Couldn't the 'onClick' case have been solved by allowing either a statement or an expression to appear there?

Re: Brendan Eich: The infernal semicolon

#95

Post by andrewflnr »

OzzyB wrote: post #65
Natsu wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised no one has made a little command line tool that follows the rules and automatically inserts semicolons according to the ASI spec. That might even be useful.

...or perhaps a simple "Zen of Javascript" would be in order. Reading this "debate" makes me thankful for the Python Community and their stance on "readable code" above all else.

Now that you mention it, every language should have a "Zen" statement, or if you don't want to call it that, a short description of its philosophy. This in addition to the concise problem/solution statement that probably every piece of software should have.

Re: Brendan Eich: The infernal semicolon

#96

Post by tzs »

cletus wrote: post #33

Heh, I was waiting for this post. Coming in the next 24 hours: - "Why I use minimal semi-colons in Javascript" - "ASI is broken but I like it" Honestly I'm shocked at the defense of this practice (of ASI "abusage"). It speaks loudly to Jacob's (fat@githib) ranking of ego-stroking and showboating over creating readable code, particularly for a library "Designed for everyone, everywhere" [1]. I'm confounded that such a…

> Honestly I'm shocked at the defense of this practice (of ASI "abusage")

Devil's advocate here: could one argue that taking advantage of ASI everywhere can make it safer, because it forces you to be fully aware of ASI?

Suppose you always put in semicolons. You can STILL get bitten by ASI. The classic example is

   return
      {
        ...stuff...
      };
ASI is going to put a semicolon right after the return and break your code.

Someone who strives to take advantage of ASI everywhere they can is going to remember that ASI is going to apply on that return, and they will code the above so as to take it into account.

Re: Brendan Eich: The infernal semicolon

#98

Post by jrockway »

Lewisham wrote: post #88
cletus wrote: post #33

Heh, I was waiting for this post. Coming in the next 24 hours: - "Why I use minimal semi-colons in Javascript" - "ASI is broken but I like it" Honestly I'm shocked at the defense of this practice (of ASI "abusage"). It speaks loudly to Jacob's (fat@githib) ranking of ego-stroking and showboating over creating readable code, particularly for a library "Designed for everyone, everywhere" [1]. I'm confounded that such a…

What surprises me is not that Fat is a bit of a jerk (note, I "get" it, but I don't respect it), but that Twitter lets him keep being a jerk and actively hostile while acting as a representative of the company. If he wrote Bootstrap by himself, he's free to call every single user an idiot if he wishes, but when it's being released as a Twitter product, one would think Twitter would demand some modicum of respect to b…

What surprises me is not that Fat is a bit of a jerk (note, I "get" it, but I don't respect it), but that Twitter lets him keep being a jerk and actively hostile while acting as a representative of the company.

My observation of open-source community dynamics tells me that being hostile is an effective way to lead a large community. I've noticed that contributors act more carefully around someone who is mean to people in general and that these people attract wide followings at conferences. (There are certainly exceptions, though, like Larry Wall.)

Can you imagine a Googler acting this way on the Chromium or Android projects?

Being nice also works, but if you compare Chrome's reach to this Javascript framework's reach and use that to scale the number of contributors, you'd expect a lot more contributions to Chrome.

I think fat is a jackass, but if he wasn't, I never would have heard about this project, which now has multiple front page articles on multiple tech sites. I imagine this is good for Twitter.

Re: Brendan Eich: The infernal semicolon

#99

Post by gbog »

jrockway wrote: post #98
Lewisham wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What surprises me is not that Fat is a bit of a jerk (note, I "get" it, but I don't respect it), but that Twitter lets him keep being a jerk and actively hostile while acting as a representative of the company. If he wrote Bootstrap by himself, he's free to call every single user an idiot if he wishes, but when it's being released as a Twitter product, one would think Twitter would demand some modicum of respect to b…

What surprises me is not that Fat is a bit of a jerk (note, I "get" it, but I don't respect it), but that Twitter lets him keep being a jerk and actively hostile while acting as a representative of the company. My observation of open-source community dynamics tells me that being hostile is an effective way to lead a large community. I've noticed that contributors act more carefully around someone who is mean to peopl…

> being hostile is an effective way to lead a large community. 

No, those are the exceptions. Being opinionated and ready to say no, however, is necessary.

Re: Brendan Eich: The infernal semicolon

#100

Post by maw »

tzs wrote: post #92
nhebb wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GitHub style guide recommends the opposite: "Do your best to never use a semicolon. This means avoiding them at line breaks and avoiding multi-statement lines. For more info, read Mislav's blog post [2]." FWIW, I agree with the Google style guide. Maybe I'm interpreting it wrong, but ASI struck me as a fail-safe to protect coders that forgot the occasional semicolon and was later mis-identified as a feature. Havi…

That blog post they cite includes this: My advice on JSLint: don’t use it. Why would you use it? If you believed that it helps you have less bugs in your code, here’s a newsflash; only people can detect and solve software bugs, not tools. So instead of tools, get more people to look at your code. Unless I'm missing something, that easily qualifies as the dumbest thing I've read on the net in the last week--and I've b…

You're not missing anything. It's dumb. JSLint doesn't find all the bugs in my code, but it does find quite a few. There are several places where I deliberately ignore its recommendations, but all in all I take what it says seriously. I'm sure you do likewise.
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