On 4/18/11, Claus Reinke <[email protected]> wrote: >> The only places where semicolons are ever used in the Node.js package >> manager are in the 'for' loops headers and at the *beginning* of the lines >> that would be interpreted incorrectly because of the lack of the semicolon >> at the end of the *previous* line - for example see: >> https://github.com/isaacs/npm/blob/master/lib/utils/read-json.js#L320-L336 >> >> There are no semicolons at the end of lines *at all*. >> >> Also the commas in multi-line arrays and parameter lists are always >> written >> at the *beginning* of lines so Node also depends on the ASI *not* >> inserting >> semicolons if the next line starts with a comma or other operator. > > Thanks. It is useful to have such concrete examples. > If you can think it, there is a porn for it.
]...] > > [aside: it would be nice to know who the committee members > are, and what the process is for starting an official proposal] > Who are the committee members? > For the specific case of ASI, Brendan has explained the issues > > https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/es-discuss/2011-April/013794.html Restricted productions are the most benign cases. How ASI changes program behavior WRT unrestricted productions is bigger problem. > In brief, there is no way simply to take away ASI, and any > attempt to introduce a less troublesome variant of ASI will > have to offer a way to deal with existing code. > The number of developers advocating ASI as a "best practice" can't be stopped either. > 'legacy' code here refers not to ancient, badly written code > but simply to code using the current ASI, which is a legacy > from the point of view of any revised ASI. > Right. > ASI reform would not have the intention to force coders to > add semicolons everywhere, it would "merely" try to make > the rules of syntax easier to understand for coders and less > troublesome for language designers. The goal would be to > avoid unnecessary syntax while also avoiding unnecessary > worrying about how the mechanism works. > > As a coder, you really don't want to add semicolons to > avoid ASI traps, as in line 232 of your example > > ;["dependencies", "devDependencies"].forEach(function (d) { > Exactly. Because otherwise, that array might be property accessor. Why do I want to have to worry about what might have been omitted? No, I want to worry about what the code says. I consider a statement terminator to be just that; when I read it, I see end of statement. don't want to read beginning of statement preceeded by empty statement. > As a language designer, there are more than enough > issues to resolve, without having to watch your back > wondering how ASI will interact with new grammar. Exactly. Multiline comments add extra problems. > Hope that clears up things a little? Totally agree with you on this one. -- Garrett _______________________________________________ es-discuss mailing list [email protected] https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss
