This one bit me the other day and forced me to switch JavaScript compressors because the one I was using (it was python-based) didn't get the IIFE (http://benal

This one bit me the other day and forced me to switch JavaScript compressors because the one I was using (it was python-based) didn't get the IIFE (http://benalman.com/news/2010/11/immediately-invoked-function-expression/ http://benalman.com/news/2010/11/immediately-invoked-functio...) right when appending files together. In this blog posting Jacob writes: The majority of lines however don’t end with semicolons because they simply aren’t necessary and I prefer the minimalist aesthetic. For me, \n character is enough and the semicolon character is redundant. He then points to the izs blog posting about it: http://blog.izs.me/post/2353458699/an-open-letter-to-javascript-leaders-regarding http://blog.izs.me/post/2353458699/an-open-letter-to-javascr... Jacob calls it more 'minimalist' however it does require you to know (and think about) the rules of when Javascript accepts a newline as a line terminator and when it doesn't. In terms of cognitive minimalism 'semis-everywhere' wins. @izs even acknowledges that part of the advantage is forcing the developer to learn: To the extent that there is an objectively “better” choice, it appears to me that the minimal-semicolon/comma-first style is slightly superior, both because it is fundamentally more scannable and because it encourages programmers to better understand the language they use. and later: If you don’t understand how statements in JavaScript are terminated, then you just don’t know JavaScript very well, and shouldn’t write JavaScript programs professionally without supervision, and you definitely should not tell anyone else how to write their JavaScript programs. He excludes the possibility that you might understand the rules and still prefer to put them everywhere. So all people who disagree with his choice (which he admitted was only slightly better) tend to get categorized as people who don't understand JavaScript very well and we get a new holy war. The fact that all of the JS noobs are lumped on one side of the argument means it's not cool and we can dismiss a well reasoned opinion as ignorance. All this being said, I personally don't care strongly one way or the other.