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"Here is your new apartment. You must use a key to enter it. If you forget your key, you can buzz the superintendent during business hours, and if the super is

"Here is your new apartment. You must use a key to enter it. If you forget your key, you can buzz the superintendent during business hours, and if the super is home, (s)he will open the door for you.” If you try to take your key with you at all times, the super will save your bacon once in a blue moon when you forget your key. On the other hand, if you think of the door as only needing a key when you wish to have it opened on nights and week-ends, you are on your way to trouble.

ronaldj 15y ago
That's a great analogy.
- groovy2shoes 15y ago
  The difference is that if you forget your key, you know that you forgot your key, and you have to actively call the superintendent to have them "save your bacon." With ASI, you might never know that you had forgotten your key.
  - eli 15y ago
    I agree that it would be nice to have something like "-Wall" that could warn you that you're doing things the "wrong way" but, uh, isn't that what JSLint is?
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
- jerf 15y ago
  That's a terrible analogy. What's the analog for receiving a syntax error instead when you "forget your keys"? The analogy gives you bizarre and wrong choices and tradeoffs. As usual, analogies do more harm than good, especially when understanding a relatively simple technical issue.
  - raganwald 15y ago
    You forget your keys, the super doesn’t let you in, you’re locked out. That’s the equivalent of a syntax error. On another topic, this isn’t really a technical issue, it’s a people issue. Everyone understands what the JS interpreter’s behaviour is, what Bootstrap.js does, and why JSMin doesn’t minify it. What is being discussed here is what choices people make to please themselves and others as opposed to the compiler. If @fat didn’t care about people, he’d use semicolons and JSMin would compile Bootstrap. If Crockford didn’t care about people, JSMin would compile Bootstrap just the way it is. When we’re talking about multiple ways of writing code that does the same thing, it’s almost entirely about people and not technical considerations.
damoe 15y ago
Of course other buildings simply don't let you leave without your key, but here at the JS Arms we feel that would be way too complicated.
enneff 15y ago
This is not a good analogy. More like the superintendant will let you into a different apartment, or let you into your apartment and then punch you in the face. You just don't know. But you don't need analogies to understand why ASI is a bad idea. ASI means that when you leave out a semi-colon you get unexpected behavior instead of a syntax error. Failure is always better than the unknown. At least then there's a chance the bug will be found and fixed.
- ricardobeat 15y ago
  > This is not a good analogy Proceeds to offer an even worse analogy. Good one :)
  - enneff 15y ago
    I then went on to say that the analogy is unnecessary and offered an interpretation unaided by analogies. Did you think I was not aware of this?
- kamaal 15y ago
  Trusting artificial intelligence to make up for human stupidity doesn't look like a very good idea to me. ASI is supposed to work in exceptional scenarios where you would have ended up making a mistake but wouldn't want to be reminded of. And that is supposed to be in rare scenarios. Now if you make exception the norm and expect tools to make up for bad practices then its not going to help. And this is why I think Python's forced indentation is in some way bad. Because it makes the code from a bad and good programmer both look same. And merely forcing code indentation won't magically transmogrify a bad programmer to a good programmer. There are many things to good programming and indentation is just one of them. Worse it will make both's code look the same. Forgiving or masking or making bad practices look good doesn't help on the longer run. It only encourages such behavior. I am sure bad programmers can slip in easily into these communities than else where, because they are difficult to flush out and their mistakes are often forgiven or made look good.

ronaldj 15y ago

That's a great analogy.

groovy2shoes 15y ago
The difference is that if you forget your key, you know that you forgot your key, and you have to actively call the superintendent to have them "save your bacon." With ASI, you might never know that you had forgotten your key.
- eli 15y ago
  I agree that it would be nice to have something like "-Wall" that could warn you that you're doing things the "wrong way" but, uh, isn't that what JSLint is?
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
jerf 15y ago
That's a terrible analogy. What's the analog for receiving a syntax error instead when you "forget your keys"? The analogy gives you bizarre and wrong choices and tradeoffs. As usual, analogies do more harm than good, especially when understanding a relatively simple technical issue.
- raganwald 15y ago
  You forget your keys, the super doesn’t let you in, you’re locked out. That’s the equivalent of a syntax error. On another topic, this isn’t really a technical issue, it’s a people issue. Everyone understands what the JS interpreter’s behaviour is, what Bootstrap.js does, and why JSMin doesn’t minify it. What is being discussed here is what choices people make to please themselves and others as opposed to the compiler. If @fat didn’t care about people, he’d use semicolons and JSMin would compile Bootstrap. If Crockford didn’t care about people, JSMin would compile Bootstrap just the way it is. When we’re talking about multiple ways of writing code that does the same thing, it’s almost entirely about people and not technical considerations.

damoe 15y ago

Of course other buildings simply don't let you leave without your key, but here at the JS Arms we feel that would be way too complicated.

enneff 15y ago

This is not a good analogy. More like the superintendant will let you into a different apartment, or let you into your apartment and then punch you in the face. You just don't know. But you don't need analogies to understand why ASI is a bad idea. ASI means that when you leave out a semi-colon you get unexpected behavior instead of a syntax error. Failure is always better than the unknown. At least then there's a chance the bug will be found and fixed.

ricardobeat 15y ago
> This is not a good analogy Proceeds to offer an even worse analogy. Good one :)
- enneff 15y ago
  I then went on to say that the analogy is unnecessary and offered an interpretation unaided by analogies. Did you think I was not aware of this?
kamaal 15y ago
Trusting artificial intelligence to make up for human stupidity doesn't look like a very good idea to me. ASI is supposed to work in exceptional scenarios where you would have ended up making a mistake but wouldn't want to be reminded of. And that is supposed to be in rare scenarios. Now if you make exception the norm and expect tools to make up for bad practices then its not going to help. And this is why I think Python's forced indentation is in some way bad. Because it makes the code from a bad and good programmer both look same. And merely forcing code indentation won't magically transmogrify a bad programmer to a good programmer. There are many things to good programming and indentation is just one of them. Worse it will make both's code look the same. Forgiving or masking or making bad practices look good doesn't help on the longer run. It only encourages such behavior. I am sure bad programmers can slip in easily into these communities than else where, because they are difficult to flush out and their mistakes are often forgiven or made look good.