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Be like: - don’t mind the peculiarities of formats used for config - create a format where semicolons denote comments (just… doesn’t look right)

by stared 1y ago

mtlmtlmtlmtl 1y ago
That part looks fine to me, but then again I'm a lisp guy.
- saghm 1y ago
  I think this is something in some assembly formats too? I remember seeing it once and wondering if maybe that's where the idea of ending lines in C with semicolons came from since at least in the examples I saw in school, a large number of lines had trailing comments with a description of what the operation was doing.
  - rzzzt 1y ago
    IDA uses ; for comments in its disassembler view, but it looks like C-style // single-line comments and /* comment blocks */ are also accepted by certain tools: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/X86_Assembly/Comments https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/X86_Assembly/Comments
fph 1y ago
OP has a detailed rationale for going with semicolons. Feel free to counter those points, but you can't just dismiss the thing with a "doesn't look right" without any argument.
- stared 1y ago
  Rationale: in the most popular modern langugues it is # or //. In JS (well, its why we have JSON), it is //. In YAML, it is #. Moreover - semicolon is a natural character used in comments (unlike // or #). It inferes with our human parsing.
  - fph 1y ago
    The first point is addressed in the article; you don't seem to address OP's counterpoint at all. I don't get the second point: why is that a problem if a semicolon appears in a comment? From what I understand, comments run until the end of the line, so a second semicolon after the first does nothing.
    - NoahKAndrews 1y ago
      The problem is when a config value includes a semicolon, and the rest of the line gets ignored unintentionally, especially because strings aren't quoted
      - fph 1y ago
        Ah, I see, so the problem is not a semicolon "used in comments", it's a semicolon used outside them. But then which character would you suggest instead? The article notes that there is the same problem with # (e.g. in `black = #000000`) and // (`url = https://en.wikipedia.com https://en.wikipedia.com`). And these are arguably more common.
        Ringz 1y ago
        What about three simple rules to define comments: 1. If # is in the first column of the line. 2. If # is followed by a space. 3. The # only starts a comment when it’s outside of quotes.

Be like: - don’t mind the peculiarities of formats used for config - create a format where semicolons denote comments (just… doesn’t look right)

by stared 1y ago

Be like: - don’t mind the peculiarities of formats used for config - create a format where semicolons denote comments (just… doesn’t look right)

mtlmtlmtlmtl 1y ago

That part looks fine to me, but then again I'm a lisp guy.

saghm 1y ago
I think this is something in some assembly formats too? I remember seeing it once and wondering if maybe that's where the idea of ending lines in C with semicolons came from since at least in the examples I saw in school, a large number of lines had trailing comments with a description of what the operation was doing.
- rzzzt 1y ago
  IDA uses ; for comments in its disassembler view, but it looks like C-style // single-line comments and /* comment blocks */ are also accepted by certain tools: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/X86_Assembly/Comments https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/X86_Assembly/Comments

fph 1y ago

OP has a detailed rationale for going with semicolons. Feel free to counter those points, but you can't just dismiss the thing with a "doesn't look right" without any argument.

stared 1y ago
Rationale: in the most popular modern langugues it is # or //. In JS (well, its why we have JSON), it is //. In YAML, it is #. Moreover - semicolon is a natural character used in comments (unlike // or #). It inferes with our human parsing.
- fph 1y ago
  The first point is addressed in the article; you don't seem to address OP's counterpoint at all. I don't get the second point: why is that a problem if a semicolon appears in a comment? From what I understand, comments run until the end of the line, so a second semicolon after the first does nothing.
  - NoahKAndrews 1y ago
    The problem is when a config value includes a semicolon, and the rest of the line gets ignored unintentionally, especially because strings aren't quoted
    - fph 1y ago
      Ah, I see, so the problem is not a semicolon "used in comments", it's a semicolon used outside them. But then which character would you suggest instead? The article notes that there is the same problem with # (e.g. in `black = #000000`) and // (`url = https://en.wikipedia.com https://en.wikipedia.com`). And these are arguably more common.
      - Ringz 1y ago
        What about three simple rules to define comments: 1. If # is in the first column of the line. 2. If # is followed by a space. 3. The # only starts a comment when it’s outside of quotes.