Semicolons in JavaScript are optional
mislav.uniqpath.com
Semicolons in JavaScript are optional
1–10 of 39 posts
Re: Semicolons in JavaScript are optional
#2wow, quite the rant about... um... semicolons. yeah, ok, I only skimmed. much more interesting things out there.
Re: Semicolons in JavaScript are optional
#3The minifier he uses seems rather bad, wonder which one it was? Ie instead of var a = 1;var b=1; it could be var a=1,b=1;
Also in case of the single line if, the minifier could actually remove the brackets.
Re: Semicolons in JavaScript are optional
#4text on there made my eyes hurt.
the basic message seems to be "don't do what everyone else is doing just because everyone else does it".
Which is great in your bedroom, but in a team with lots of eyes on your code the most efficient way is to use the same style, with that style being one that is easy to read and that avoids potential misunderstandings and bugs.
I can't imagine any situation in the sphere of development this article is about in which worrying about a couple of hundred bytes is more important than having a set of code that someone other than yourself could happily sit in front of.
Re: Semicolons in JavaScript are optional
#5Use semicolons. Always. It's looks cleaner, and you won't come up against stupid errors like
return
{
foo: 7
}
When you're done trying to wrap your brain around
why would anyone in their right mind want to write
a return statement on a new line
function foo()
{
return
{
bar: 8
}
}
That's 24 bytes right there. Stamp semicolons
everywhere and run it through a minifier:
var a=1;var b=2;var c=3;
// after minification
if(condition){stuff()}
Easy solution: when a line starts with parenthesis,
prepend a semicolon to it.
;(d + e).print()
I remember when I first saw C code (coming from BASIC) and thought similar thoughts - eugh what are all those useless semicolons they don't do anything what's the point of them etc.
One important point is that it allows you to rearrange the whitespace in your code, without changing the execution meaning of your code. Which is pretty useful in making your code beautiful and readable and avoiding bugs.
Re: Semicolons in JavaScript are optional
#6Use semicolons. Always. It's looks cleaner, and you won't come up against stupid errors like return { foo: 7 } From the article - When you're done trying to wrap your brain around why would anyone in their right mind want to write a return statement on a new line Well, if they love having { on newlines, then it's pretty obvious: function foo() { return { bar: 8 } } From the article - That's 24 bytes right there. Stam…
The original argument is not about the minifier, but about semicolons.
By the way, why would your better minifier introduce a semicolon here ? This is obviously a useless character in this example.
Also, I don't understand how adding a semicolon could help against the "stupid error" you cite. Could anyone please explain ?
Re: Semicolons in JavaScript are optional
#7Hm, if we look a little more generalized at what that says, its like:
"If theres a language/library feature with a few quirks, use it anyway, if the border cases aren't that usual."
Thats really bad advice. The main disadvantage is that no one will, if you combine a lot of such decisions, have all this border and special cases in mind, all the time.
Re: Semicolons in JavaScript are optional
#8His comments about minification are silly. It's entirely dependent on the minifier. Google Closure on my system converts:
if(condition) stuff()
To:
condition&&stuff()
So no, it doesn't add curly brackets and increase the size of the expression. And Google closure converts:
var a=1
var b=2
var c=3
To:
var a=1,b=2,c=3
Not what he said all minifiers do.
Re: Semicolons in JavaScript are optional
#9Use semicolons. Always. It's looks cleaner, and you won't come up against stupid errors like return { foo: 7 } From the article - When you're done trying to wrap your brain around why would anyone in their right mind want to write a return statement on a new line Well, if they love having { on newlines, then it's pretty obvious: function foo() { return { bar: 8 } } From the article - That's 24 bytes right there. Stam…
I don't think semicolons help your example.
return
{
foo: 7
};
Re: Semicolons in JavaScript are optional
#10Use semicolons. Always. It's looks cleaner, and you won't come up against stupid errors like return { foo: 7 } From the article - When you're done trying to wrap your brain around why would anyone in their right mind want to write a return statement on a new line Well, if they love having { on newlines, then it's pretty obvious: function foo() { return { bar: 8 } } From the article - That's 24 bytes right there. Stam…
The original argument is not about the minifier, but about semicolons. By the way, why would your better minifier introduce a semicolon here ? This is obviously a useless character in this example. Also, I don't understand how adding a semicolon could help against the "stupid error" you cite. Could anyone please explain ?
I don't actually remember what closure advanced mode does. It's quite possible it does remove ";" in some instances. But really, you either need a newline or a ";" to mark the end of a statement, so the question is fairly moot - it's gonna be 1 byte either way.
If you always put semicolons to mark the end of a statement, then seeing a statement without one would be like seeing a megablocks brick in your lego box - glaringly obvious and extremely offensive.
IMHO that backeting style sucks, and shouldn't be used, at least in js.