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0 pointsjokull13y ago0 comments

It’s hard to author by hand. Ever added a comma after the last element in a list? It’s not very forgiving.

0 comments

This is actually one of the worst things about it to me, other than the lack of comments. A language that has comma-separated lists and doesn't allow trailing commas on the list as a whole is frustrating to use in a version controlled context because adding an item requires modifying the item before, which leads to more (and less obviously solvable) merge conflicts.

GhotiFish13y ago

I've seen a style of list initialization that sort of addresses this issue. I like it, but I don't see it used very often. Darn you standards!

    kittyBreeds = ["Himalayan"
                  ,"Bengal"
                  ,"Siamese"
                  ,"Burmese"
                  ,"Cornish Rex" //rawr
                  ,"LaPerm"
                  ,"Manx"  
    
    //This is not a real cat! >:(
    //              ,"lolcat"
                  ,"Munchkin"
                  ,"Ocicat"
                  ];

In this way the issue with the commas is relegated to the first element, rather than the last. Since appending is more common, this seems a better style.

stormbrew13y ago

Interesting approach. This strikes me as kind of like the classic "put the constant on the left" advice in C/C++ that, no matter how many people agree it's a good idea, no one ever does because the cognitive effort of understanding it is high enough to diminish the correctness benefit.

In other words, you know you're just gonna end up with this in your code after a few months:

kittyBreeds = ["Himalayan", ,"Bengal", "Siamese", "Cornish Rex", ,"Manx"]

and not only is it now even worse for changing lines (correcting it and adding another will be -1+3 instead of just -1+2, the optimal +1 a distant memory), but it's just plain a mess and probably people don't know why they need to do it.

jaredmcateer13y ago

That's JavaScript not just JSON, if you install JSHint or JSLint in your editor you'll spot the error right away.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

stormbrew13y ago

GhotiFish13y ago

I've seen a style of list initialization that sort of addresses this issue. I like it, but I don't see it used very often. Darn you standards!

    kittyBreeds = ["Himalayan"
                  ,"Bengal"
                  ,"Siamese"
                  ,"Burmese"
                  ,"Cornish Rex" //rawr
                  ,"LaPerm"
                  ,"Manx"  
    
    //This is not a real cat! >:(
    //              ,"lolcat"
                  ,"Munchkin"
                  ,"Ocicat"
                  ];

In this way the issue with the commas is relegated to the first element, rather than the last. Since appending is more common, this seems a better style.

stormbrew13y ago

In other words, you know you're just gonna end up with this in your code after a few months:

kittyBreeds = ["Himalayan", ,"Bengal", "Siamese", "Cornish Rex", ,"Manx"]

jaredmcateer13y ago

That's JavaScript not just JSON, if you install JSHint or JSLint in your editor you'll spot the error right away.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse