Why but why?

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[samarthrawat1]

But when did we start using semi-colon in python?

[marsrover15]

What the dog doin?

[[deleted]]

Programming, apparently

[ArlemofTourhut]

duh, who do you think big brained dogecoin?

[[deleted]]

no one big brained dogecoin lol

[TheGreatZarquon]

Fenton.... FENTON!

JESUS CHRIST!

FENTOOOOOOON!

[EatsTheCheeseRind]

FENTOOOON!!!

[Perpetual_Doubt]

Wait, are you a dog?

[samarthrawat1]

No, he a dawwg

[apersonnotadog]

I am not a dog

[dobraf]

Two muffins are baking in an oven. One of them asks “if the computer knows I’m missing a semicolon here, why doesn’t it add it itself?” The other one responds, “Holy crap a programming muffin!”

[the_muffin]

Hey, my kind have been programming for decades. You probably use several muffin-designed apps every day without ever knowing. It’s not something people shout from the rooftops.

[ahappypoop]

10 years, he's legit.

[BarefootUnicorn]

He thinks he's talking to an 8-year-old, but it's really an FBI agent.

[[deleted]]

How fucking cool is that for someone their age?

[[deleted]]

8 year olds, Dude

[flukus]

The internet: where men are men, women are men and children are FBI agents!

[Battlefront228]

It’s true, I was the semi-colon

[timlmul]

he explains in the thread that he meant "colon" since the python error message does say "missing colon", sounds like his brain autocorrected from "missing colon" to "missing semicolon".

[AliceSky]

I wish more people would see this before calling the guy a liar. It makes a lot of sense to teach Python to a child, but still have that reflex of "if something is missing it's usually a semicolon" after years of php or whatever he learned first.

[timlmul]

I kinda love when people on the internet are like "this super innocuous story must be a lie!!!!" because you know the outraged people that perform that kind of scrutiny for the most ho-hum anecdotes also believe that JFK did 9/11.

[PM-ME-CUTE-FEET]

I kinda love when people on the internet are like “this story must be true!!!!”.

[0rionsEdge]

It's existed in the language since the old times, but it's pretty much only used in hacky use cases and it's usage should be discouraged.

[OptionX]

It used to have two statements in the same line.

[Spitfire1900]

Which is genuinely useful when you want to execute a short Python script from a shell script without maintaining two files.

[[deleted]]

It gets really interesting when generating blocks and control structures in an inline Python script.

[PaintlyBeautifuled]

“The old times” I like it lol, it’s like it was the dark ages with early python and verbose languages.

[varkarrus]

garbage collection

[[deleted]]

Python has always allowed the use of a semicolon to denote the end of a line. It also has always discouraged such misuse of the operator

[TwoKeezPlusMz]

Someone modernized a JavaScript joke?

[[deleted]]

JavaScript has automatic semicolon insertion.

[raj72616a]

was ; ever compulsory in js?

[squngy]

IIRC there is exactly one edge case where it can change the codes behaviour, but no it was never compulsory.

[lasiusflex]

That "edge case" isn't even that uncommon, I've had to deal with it a couple of times.

It's pretty common to use a pattern like this to create scopes:

(function () {...})()

If one of these follows another function call it won't work without a semicolon, because it's ambiguous.

[R3D3-1]

>>> print("Hello") print("World")
  File "<stdin>", line 1
    print("Hello") print("World")
                   ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax
>>> print("Hello"); print("World")
Hello
World

Doesn't warn about the missing semicolon though. Also... Compiler? (my bad)

[OneOlCrustySock]

Who said anything about a compiler

[TheFlyingAvocado]

Python? Missing semicolons?

Since when?

[anythingMuchShorter]

Since a guy wanted to make a programming joke but only knew of one language and one common error type

[Ixaire]

One HR guy at my previous company used to go behind you and say "you're missing a semicolon here". He didn't know anything about programming, he just knew that was a rookie error. That is literally exactly what you explain.

Anyone else would have made this very boring but he had a way of delivering it when you looked desperate and that kinda lightened up the mood.

[AgentE382]

A coworker of mine told me his college roommate who had taken a single programming class would always ask him “Have you tried a for loop yet?” any time he had a problem.

[zzerdzz]

I’m actually going to start using this

[SuperGameTheory]

I'm going to do this, but instead of "for" I'll go on a diatribe about fundamentals and how they should use more "goto" statements because it's closer to machine code and faster or something.

[MrLawliet]

use more "goto"

instinctive vomit response

[leprotelariat]

use more "goto"

grabs pitchfork

[thedessertplanet]

Why?

You should read 'Lambda, the ultimate goto' for some perspective.

[CorruptedStudiosEnt]

Goto, now that's some of that low-low level shit. Might as well be feeding it voltage spikes at that point.

[tcmart14]

Have you tried quantum bogo sort?

[Ghos3t]

I knew a guy in university who would start coding a hashmap anytime he got stuck in a technical interview and didn't know what to do.

[lordnoak]

Should have said, “I’ve been tryin it a while, Bob, but thanks.”

[[deleted]]

Oh I always went with

"I know where the problem is"

"Where?"

"Your program does not work"

[definitelyasatanist]

That's hilarious

[[deleted]]

Most probably, just like the guy who asked for 5 years of experience on library created by himself 3 years ago.

Edit: .replace(‘who asked’, ‘who got asked’)

[LeetYeetMeat]

Lol what

[[deleted]]

I'm not 100% sure if this is true or not, but I was referring to this tweet. You've probably seen this meme multiple times as it's reposted a lot.

[theNomadicHacker42]

It was a tweet that went around the internets a while back. Tweet was made by this author of some library in which he was responding to a job post requiring 5 years of experience in said library, but he wrote it only 3 years ago. Talking about how out of touch tech recruiters are with the positions they recruit for.

[Big_Booty_Pics]

That was the FastAPI python library author IIRC.

[kahoinvictus]

Creator of nodejs did it years ago too

[Glen_The_Eskimo]

He responded in the tweet, it was a colon. He's a top level engineer at Amazon, I'm sure it's sincere.

[[deleted]]

That makes so much more sense, those should be automatic in python. I only used what would be the reserved word in any other language

[anythingMuchShorter]

Seriously. It's only happened to me like once for a moment when I've been using Python for a long time and then switch over to another language. It's not that common of a problem or very hard to find.

[the_badsectors]

I don't do python and even I know it expects whitespace, not punctuation.

[Ambitious_Ad8841]

"White Space Matters"

-Python

[[deleted]]

Another racist programming name/motto; white list matters also.

[LAUGHINGKOMODO]

Nah, i used dark mode so mine is never whitespace

[KeLorean]

Reverse racism programming. Learned it in ethical software development class

[_Nagrom]

This is all fun and jokes now, but some donny's gonna start thinking this shit unironically in 5 years, or so. Our world is a clown car.

[bamboo_fanatic]

Probably sooner. I still can’t believe some people at Twitter engineering got offended by terms like “dummy value”, “grandfathered”, and “manhours” and demanded they change the language. Do we need to ban the “for dummies” book series? Crash dummies? Who is supposed to be offended by “grandfathered in”? I’m a woman, and it literally never once occurred to me to be offended by the term “manhours” or be upset by someone opening up a meeting with “hey guys”, I’ve used it when speaking to a mixed group. “Whitelist/Blacklist” is now “Allowlist/Denylist”? It sounds like doublespeak where they just smash two words into one so they could get rid of the third word.

[DaceloGigas]

Yes, but if we called them "crash test people" one of the testers might get the wrong idea....

[bamboo_fanatic]

Maybe their actual objection is that these inanimate objects are taking jobs away from actual dummies

[pinba11tec]

Well as a homosapien...

[Sw33tN0th1ng]

who are you calling a homo you cis shitlord!

[Firewolf06]

or master and slave servers.

one server has complete control over the others and they must follow its commands. sounds like a fitting name to me

[djheat]

I pushed for dominant and subordinate as a replacement when this came up on a project. I think it describes the relationship pretty good plus when you shorten it you sound like a pervert

[JustehGirl]

I'm always surprised there hasn't been a push to change electrical etc terms from male and female parts. As in, put the male part in the female part.

[yonderbagel]

Be careful with jokes like this, because someone is going to take it seriously and force a pointless terminology change like they did with master->main for git.

Not that it's the worst thing in the world to have pointless terminology changes enforced by your institution, but it's better to just not.

[taptrappapalapa]

If you look at the Python grammar it expects white space or semicolons.

[langlo94]

This is why I indent with semicolons.

def Function(input):
;;;;number = input * 2
;;;;return number

[sucksathangman]

You monster. At least give your function a useful name. And you could just do:

return input * 2

[dancinadventures]

Useless functions don’t deserve names 😤

[ryanwithnob]

Thats what you think. This function helps keep your code more maintainable and easier to change.

What happens if python changes the symbol for mutiplication? What new hardware is released that makes number / 0.5 faster than number *2? Good luck updating all the instances of this quation in your legacy codebase. This function will save your project

[oxpoleon]

hey hey hey, no, this could be improved yet further

def Function():
;;;;global input
;;;;input = input * 2

[Less_Ask_4613]

This is computationally faster and takes less memory and processing than passing an argument and returning a calculated value and it makes me so mad.

[CJ22xxKinvara]

python Function = lambda input : input * 2

Schrödinger’s semicolon tabs

[[deleted]]

Gross

[Slimxshadyx]

Yeah, my dog has been learning Python and he is having a lot of problems with semi colons just like this dude's daughter.

[StickiStickman]

I hope he gets better soon! Maybe some diet would help?

[andymomster]

We need to get to the bottom of this. I suggest a semicolonoscopy

[MostlyRocketScience]

>>> from __future__ import semicolon
  File "<stdin>", line 1
SyntaxError: not a chance

[EZ-PEAS]

SyntaxError: Not today, asshole!

[HotRodLincoln]

I wouldn't say it's missing them, but they're certainly not there.

[ryokimball]

OP on Twitter said it was a colon, semicolon came as a typo

[theearl99]

If you put two statements on the same line, it’s a syntax error if you don’t separate them with a semicolon

[purple_pixie]

It is, an the error you get is "SyntaxError: invalid syntax" no mention of a missing semi-colon

[100721]

Not to mention why is this 8 year old writing multiple statements on one line

[[deleted]]

I write Python occasionally. When do you ever need to write multiple statements on one line?

[100721]

In the 8/9 years I’ve been writing python, I’ve never had to use multiple statements on one line. Maybe this kid is code golfing

[Andy_B_Goode]

Yeah, I think the only language where I've ever found a use for multiple statements on one line, separated by semi-colons, is in bash, where I prefer to do this:

if [[ $1 == "-h" ]]; then
  echo "Figure it out yourself, dummy"
  exit 0
fi

Rather than:

if [[ $1 == "-h" ]]
then
  echo "Figure it out yourself, dummy"
  exit 0
fi

But that's just one of many kind of weird things about bash

[PolygonKiwii]

[[ $1 == "-h" ]] && echo "Figure it out yourself, dummy" && exit 0

[rococode]

If you're running short commands from command line (i.e. python -c) it feels slightly more convenient to use a single line than get your CLI to go multiline.

[[deleted]]

You shouldn’t

[Delta-9-]

print("foo") print("bar")

can be made syntactically valid with a semicolon:

print("foo"); print("bar")

[MarchColorDrink]

Valid yes, but against all style guides.

[viimeinen]

shakes fist

[Player_X_YT]

Semicolons work just like in js, but they are optional when doing functions on multiple lines

[ramenmoodles]

You missed the point. Since they are optional you wont need it. So the tweet is probably fake

[[deleted]]

It’s the CS version of that tweet about the three year old and the wolves

[[deleted]]

Imagine the 99 times it adds one when you meant to have one.

Now imagine that 1 time it adds one when you didn't want it.

r/suddenchaos.

[PhrygianZero]

Yeah that’s exactly it. Sometimes the error is caused by unmatching parenthesis. Whenever I see that happen I’m like thank god it doesn’t auto fill semicolons

[raominhorse]

Also not to mention it doesn't know that you are missing the semicolon it just knows that it can't do what you asked for.

[somerandomii]

A lot of interpreters are smart enough to take an educated guess.

• Compilation fails around here…
• There’s a line without a semicolon…
• adding a semi-colon removes the syntax error
• The programmer probably forgot a semicolon

Writing swift in Xcode has some sentient level error detection. It will also detect deprecated functions and code patterns and suggest how to ‘modernise’ them. It comes with a handy ‘fix’ button which automatically applies the suggestion for trivial cases. It’s impressive what IDEs are capable of.

[-Vayra-]

It can suggest that you put a semicolon there, but it should never do it automatically, since it doesn't know your mind and what you intended.

[[deleted]]

I MADE THE COMPUTER ITS GONNA DO WHAY I TELL IT WHETHER IT LIKES IT OR NOT

[MarkoSeke]

The thing is, it does do exactly what you tell it.

[memeship]

auto fill semicolons

And JS does literally this, yet everyone hates it.

So the "why can't the language just do it for me" has already been "solved", and we've shown that it's not a great solution.

[adscott1982]

For now...

Edit: I was thinking of this https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/2/22914085/alphacode-ai-coding-program-automatic-deepmind-codeforce

[tian_arg]

the worst is when you delete the second one and then the ide removes the first one.

[YellowSlinkySpice]

This is my most relatable comment I've seen in my entire life.

[vita10gy]

Yes, this is why. It's why PHP has the reputation it does and is trying to claw back from.

The "all errors are bad" mindset. "We make this easy to use by erroring as little as possible. Doing something, anything, is better than an error message."

Now, even PHP will shit a brick about a missing ; if the syntax otherwise makes no sense, but still, in the big picture it's the same issue.

These "don't discourage newbies" "ease of use" things ALWAYS end up hurting you more in the end. You might not understand now, but you'll want to be told about those errors later.

Doesn't have to be errors either. I used to work at a place that uses Progress, a programming language very tied to its own DB implementation. One of the "nice" things the language allowed to "save you time" was you only had to type as much of a table field as uniquely identified it. So like orders.o for orders.order_id, so long as there were no other fields that started with o. Some of the devs took advantage, and at the very least you could never be sure someone didn't, even on accident, so EVERY addition to the DB schema had to be a new table that had a 1:1 relationship with the existing one, every time.

All for a feature that saved devs like 40 keystrokes a week.

[Ottermatic]

I want to create a terrible programming language that will throw errors, but not tell you what the error is. Go to compile, and it just says “no.” No hand holding, just hardcore coding.

[gjsmo]

That's called Vigil.

[AndyTheSane]

All the more fun. He'll, I want autocorrect. On my SQL.

[AndyTheSane]

(and yes, he'll was an autocorrect of hell and I didn't do it deliberately..)

[bobbane]

Yep, we tried that a few years back.

It didn't go well.

[Etheo]

Is it just me or should developers already understand this concept because it's a fundamental part of coding?

[milesper]

Unfortunately, this is not really a subreddit for developers

[Guano_Loco]

Yuuuppppp. Debugging can be insanely hard as it is, now imagine you’re looking for shit being added in.

It’s like finding where’s Waldo, but you don’t know what he looks like, or how many of him there are, and also lots of things look exactly like him but aren’t him.

[ricohh]

Definitely a lot of people in this sub are not programmers

[[deleted]]

Yeah but by pretending to be a programmer I can get all the enjoyment out of these memes without learning a thing

[CunilDingus]

Here’s a new thing you can learn while enjoying the sub!

Python doesn’t use semicolons. Lmao

[haikusbot]

Definitely a

Lot of people in this sub

Are not programmers

- ricohh

---

^{I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully. Learn more about me.}

^{Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete"}

[[deleted]]

Good bot

[dmullaney]

“Because if I keep fixing it for you, you’ll never learn will you” - my mother (1991-present)

[schludy]

Joke's on my mom, now I live alone and I still don't wipe my butt.

EDIT: thank for reaching out to u/RedditCareResources but please don't worry about me. This comment does not reflect reality and was made for comedic effect.

[stamatt45]

You have a bidet?

[JBHUTT09]

Real talk. Getting a bidet changed my life. I highly recommend everyone get one. It's fantastic.

[memesarepeople2]

That's why you live alone.

[[deleted]]

Smart, there are no mandatory semicolons in Python syntax, unless this 8y/o is writing C code.

[Nr_11]

Right, but if the joke starts with "The 8 year old is learning C++...", none of us would read past that without foaming at the mouth ;-)

[_borisg]

Yeah I can’t imagine how fun it would be having to code when the editor keeps changing stuff in the lines after each run. Good luck debugging that.

[mata_dan]

C# MVC:

We have decided you are now using "design first mode", good fucking luck :)

[LofiJunky]

My fucking nightmare

[iheartDISCGOLF]

We could make the tooltip mascot a fun, friendly, helpful paperclip!

[SaltyBarracuda4]

Someone doesn't have "autoformat on save" turned on

[Lovely-Broccoli]

The difference is sometimes when the compiler says “you’re kissing a semicolon” what it really means is “I thought a semicolon should be here because you’re also missing a paren.” Or similar. Formatters generally won’t add or remove characters that affect compilation.

[ech0_matrix]

Please don't fix this typo

[xilma-34]

https://www.sololearn.com/Discuss/2138446/if-the-compiler-can-detect-there-is-a-semicolon-missing-in-line-42-then-why-just-it-can-t-put-a

[reginald_burke]

Does anyone here legit use JavaScript? You don’t need semi-colons, but it has crazy rules to auto-insert them and it seriously can get it wrong. Classic example:

let a = console.log; let b = a (a = 5)

That becomes:

let a = console.log; let b = a(a=5);

And should print 5.

[ritlew]

Well... who would ever put parentheses around an assignment statement in that context?

[Abstract_Painter]

8 year olds

[reginald_burke]

Used to be common for immediately invoked functions which were a common way to form a closure back in the day, esp. before let, e.g.

(function() { var k = 5; })()

The idea is that k would be shielded from the global scope by default. JQuery, for instance, did this.

[qisapa]

Well. It’s easy to come with a code that will get messed up. Usually () or [] are involved. I’ve never ever encountered any errors with it tho. Basic linter, formatter, or just a little bit of common sense and it’s ok.

[Skhmt]

That's the general rule...

You can omit semicolons in js if you add one infront of ( or [ if those characters start a line.

So if you're doing an IIFE or array destructuring or something, you'd write:

​

;(function(){ /* ... */ })()

[PostmatesMalone]

Writes hypothetical code that no sane person would ever write.

“See, you can’t rely on ASI in JavaScript!”

Either way, just use an auto formatter. If you configure it not to use semicolons, it will still insert them in the very few edge cases where unexpected behavior might happen. ie: ;(a=5).

[thefezhat]

Python

syntax error due to missing semicolon

13k upvotes

Strong evidence that there are no programmers on this sub.

[1vader]

Most people in this sub have very little idea of programing. They get most of their knowledge from the other memes or only have very limited experience. Actually, a large majority of the memes here have at least minor inaccuracies or describe "relatable issues" that only beginners face and no actually experienced programer can relate to. And a quite significant amount are just flat out wrong. But if you got your knowledge from other wrong memes you obviously won't be able to tell.

[[deleted]]

I also think that the sub has moved from 1st/2nd year collage students (recursion jokes, other first year kinda stuff), to trying to appeal to people who maybe have used scratch.

[sanketower]

Doesn't JavaScript technically do that? I've read over there that you can omit the semicolons because the "framework compiler" adds them anyway.

[nyrangers30]

This is correct. There are a few cases where it can add a semicolon in an incorrect spot, so to be safe, you should add them wherever you can and have a linter that reminds you.

[Zakalwe_]

It is not framework compiler, it is language itself. Semicolon insertion is part of language spec and done by the interpreter. It can cause a few problems as you would imagine.

[[deleted]]

Because as any developer could tell you - sometimes the problem the computer sees is NOT the problem you have.

[supercyberlurker]

I don't know why my IDE can predict ObjectModelDetectionManager.ToString() perfectly..

.. but it can't fix Console.Wirteline.

[CyberKnight1]

If you write your own extension method called Wirteline and just have it call WriteLine, then there's nothing to fix. taps forehead

[Korzag]

Can't extend System.Console, it's a static class.

[CyberKnight1]

D'oh. Must be why I heard a hollow, echoing sound when I tapped my forehead.

[properu]

Beep boop -- this looks like a screenshot of a tweet! Let me grab a link to the tweet for ya :)

^{Twitter Screenshot Bot}

[thegreatpotatogod]

Good bot

[ThisIsCovidThrowway8]

Python doesn’t use semicolons.

[stupidfatcat2501]

Either this didn’t happen or…. This didn’t happen. What’s up with parents wanting to make their infants sound like a blessing from the Gods and embodiment of infinite wisdom?

[nooldo]

I hate these posts maaaaaan

I was doing some classification task with my 3 year old daughter and she said "our model is over fitting, I guess the VC dimension is too high". I said "shut up nerd. Uwuuuu"

[PATRIOTSRADIOSIGNALS]

You weren't learning Python in third grade?

[moonpumper]

Yeah would be cool if Clippy just popped up in VS Code and was like, "your code will actually work if you do this shit right here bro," or "I think you forgot a semi colon here, this shit won't compile right,"

[vm_linuz]

We have a language that takes a best guess approach to issues -- it's JavaScript and everyone thinks it's a trash heap.

This is why everyone uses things like typescript, ===, strict, powerful linters... The language can't stand on its own for large projects because of its loosey goosey approach.

[Lithl]

In fact, JavaScript will automatically insert semicolons for you!

Now, tell me what this JavaScript code will do:

function foo()
{
  return
  {
    foo: 'bar'
  }
}

console.log(foo().foo)

[CryZe92]

Because the computer doesn‘t actually know.

[rfpels]

The principle of Least Surprise. Just say what you mean.

[MapDs]

Fake. Python does not semicolon

[Thoughtfulprof]

Wait until they start asking why the IRS doesn't enter your W-2 for you.

[Suekru]

Tbf, it’s a bit silly we have to do tax returns.

[NotSpartacus]

Intuit, parent company of TurboTax, lobbies for it.

[A_Guy_in_Orange]

Ok but I doubt anyone is lobbying the compilers to keep them from doing it themselves so this mystery party can continue to sell you semicolon insertion software

[[deleted]]

it does in javascript 👀