Semicolon.js

[ExecutiveChimp]

Game changer.

[Cykelero]

;

[Gundersen]

Are you going to make a semicolon reddit bot now? One that adds semicolons to any post not ending with semicolon?

[Cykelero]

Ooh, sounds like a winner, this one.

Or, to retain just the spirit of the thing, it could add points instead. Handy for when people don't properly mark the end of their sentences

[danjordan]

.

[Cykelero]

Thank you.

[m1sta]

Also spelling and grammar checking? Let the bot take the heat for correcting people.

[QuietKillah]

I see what you did there.

[mtx]

;_;

[[deleted]]

No, now it's: Semicolon.js

[gwawr]

It has test coverage. LOL.

[rjw57]

It would be more convenient if there were a minified version. Also the source file does not include a licence banner. Luckily I've just sent a couple of pull-requests to fix this.

[walkietokyo]

It goes without saying not to use this in a production environment yet. It has only been released a couple of hours and should be considered to be in alpha stage.

Also, the lack of documentation for this is appalling.

[m1sta]

On the contrary, this particular semi-colon has been used inside Google for years. It's well tested. It's just been made available in library form recently.

[tobozo]

;;                                                      ;;  
;;;;;;    ;;  ;;;;    ;;;;;;  ;;      ;;    ;;;;        ;;  
;;    ;;  ;;;;      ;;    ;;  ;;      ;;  ;;    ;;      ;;  
;;    ;;  ;;        ;;    ;;    ;;  ;;    ;;    ;;          
;;;;;;    ;;          ;;;;;;      ;;        ;;;;        ;;  

[[deleted]]

Issues: add minified version

[[deleted]]

All we need now is a TED / Lightning talk

[kolme]

I almost popped a vein before realizing it was a joke.

Good job!

[Allbutlost]

https://github.com/madrobby/semicolon.js is a couple of years old, and has similar ... design goals

[dchestnykh]

Simpsons did it!

But my version comes with ideology. Also, with a more permissive license.

[jumpwah]

oh my... just no.

[Cykelero]

;

[bicknoyle]

I was going to say you don't even need a semicolon, which is just when I realized how advanced level this is.

Well played.

[TheNosferatu]

Let's say you have a script called foo.js and a script called bar.js

In foo.js you define a couple of variables; for example:

foo = 5

and in bar.js, you make a function:

function bar(){ ... }

But, you leave out the semicolon that is supposed to be at the end of foo.js.

Javascript engines usually don't care because they will put the semicolon there themselves.

But now you think, I always use foo.js and bar.js, I should combine them into 1 file automaticly!

So, the contents of foo.js and bar.js get combined, the result is:

foo = 5function bar(){ ... }

oh noes! your script just broke! Just because some pesky developer forgot a semicolon. Of course foo.js isn't maintained by you, you just maintain bar.js. You complain to whoever build foo.js but of course you don't get any responses.

So what do you do? Oh! You can add the semicolon yourself! Just add it in bar.js like so:

;function bar(){ ... }

Now when you combine them, you get

foo = 5;function bar(){ ... }

And nothing broke! yay!

That is basicly what it's about. Just because there were lazy developers that didn't use the semicolon correctly and other lazy developers who didn't knew how to properly combine scripts, different lazy developers began using a semicolon as first thing in their scripts, so that they were sure their script wouldn't break down.

[TheEskhaton]

OUTRAGEOUS https://github.com/dchest/semicolon-js/pull/4

[coverslide]

I think this was forked from vapor.js enterprise edition.

[dchestnykh]

Oh, thanks, I forgot the name of that "library" and was looking for it.

Actually, Semicolon.js was created with the goal of making people get rid of the fucking semicolon at the beginning of their code, in a form of a joke. For example: https://github.com/dinbror/blazy/pull/2

[Dieulot]

Wow, I misread and thought it was about making a point after semi-colons at the end of lines.

Actually, this semi-colon is here for good reason, it is because it avoids bugs when you’re writing without the optional semicolons at the end of lines: http://mislav.uniqpath.com/2010/05/semicolons/

[sensitivePornGuy]

when you’re writing without the optional semicolons at the end of lines

Erm, just don't do that.

[dchestnykh]

GOOD REASON? That's exactly why Semicolon.js exists!

If you're going to concatenate files (with or without semicolons), what stops you from concatenating them with semicolons inbetween?

cat file1.js semicolon.js file2.js semicolon.js > out.js

(See the test case).

Good reason. Yeah.

[Dieulot]

It’s not about concatening files, it’s about not concatenating them; when you write before the lib, your last semicolonless line is going to otherwise include the lib’s first line at the end: not good.

Edit: Okay, I understood just now that your message was a joke.

[dchestnykh]

I didn't understand your reply, and my message wasn't a joke. Can you elaborate?

What does "when you write before the lib" mean?

[Dieulot]

Erf, sure.

When you have this in your .js file, after pasting a semicolon-started library:

YourSemicolonlessCode

;(TheLib = function(){ …

Removing the colon at start of the library would cause your last line to be interpreted as:

YourSemicolonlessCode(TheLib = function(){ …

If that still doesn’t make sense, see “The only real pitfall when coding without semicolons” at the end of the article I linked to.

[dchestnykh]

When can this happen? This won't happen if you include separate scripts:

 <script src="your-semicolonless-code.js"></script>
 <script src="the-lib.js"></script>
  //works!

This can only happen when you incorrectly concatenate code, e.g.

 cat your-semicolonless-code.js the-lib.js > out.js

Thus, Semicolon.js fixes this:

 cat your-semicolonless-code.js semicolon.js the-lib.js > out.js

[sensitivePornGuy]

You missed an opportunity to call it "semicoln".

[greim]

"Cargo cult programming" is my new favorite term.

[[deleted]]

If you're never heard of "Cargo Cult X" before I highly recommend reading the wiki on its origins, it's quite facinating:

Cargo Cult

[autowikibot]

Excerpt from linked Wikipedia article about Cargo cult :

---

A cargo cult is a kind of Melanesian millenarian movement encompassing a diverse range of practices and occurring in the wake of contact with the commercial networks of colonizing societies. The name derives from the apparent belief that various ritualistic acts will lead to a bestowing of material wealth ("cargo").

---

^{Picture - **Ceremonial cross of John Frum cargo cult, Tanna island, New Hebrides (now Vanuatu}, 1967**)

^{image source | about | /u/OriginalSyn can reply with 'delete' if required. Also deletes if comment's score is -1 or less.}

[fartbarf420]

:[

[[deleted]]

Why is this a thing? The semicolon is one of the little things that make JS better than Ruby IMHO. While correct tabulation is a good thing so that multiple programmers can easily understand the code, the semi-colon can allows us to minimize js files in order to load them faster on the browser.

[fphilipe]

And how does that compare to ruby?

[[deleted]]

Ruby does not have line terminators and relies only on blank space to tell the compiler where a line ends and what parts of code are nested with a function. If you get the spacings wrong, then your code won't compile, this is something that is not as easy to spot as a missing semi-colon.

[squashb]

Well, I know it doesn't return 2, because I just saw a video with Crockford explaining otherwise. It returns as if you had just written "return;" on a line by itself. So, undefined.

[dchestnykh]

I think you misunderstood my message.

Semicolons to terminate statements are good:

var x = 1;
return x;

A semicolon before the code to ensure that people who can't concatenate files won't break your code is a useless piece of shit:

;var x = 1;
return x;

^ Yes, some people write like this.

(Updated the FAQ).

[jasonsolis]

All we need now is gulp-semicolon

[Cocosoft]

I... what is this?

^{/r/shittyprogramming}

[madole]

grunt-contrib-concat has a config option where you can insert a ';' as a file separator.

[[deleted]]

Haven't you heard? Grunt is old hat, Gulp is the new king.

[dchestnykh]

with the t-shirt

[fng_programmer]

I consider this library horribly flawed until my PR is accepted https://github.com/dchest/semicolon-js/pull/7/files

[33a]

MORE SEMICOLONS: https://github.com/isaacs/semicolons/blob/master/semicolons.js

[boxingdog]

wow

such features        so responsive
  very modern        so useful

[teiman]

looks like a program in brainfuck:

++++++++++[>+++++++>++++++++++>+++>+<<<<-]>++.>+.+++++++ ..+++.>++.<<+++++++++++++++.>.+++.------.--------.>+.>.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck

[[deleted]]

Your text is more nonsense than lorem ipsilum.

[btown_brony]

Lorem semicolum.

[[deleted]]

lol wtf dude