TIL about the greek question mark

Tell me, can you tell the difference between these two characters?

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      • Platypus@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        That’s what’s really irks me be about JS–you can do just about whatever but you’re not supposed to.

        It’s an imperative language, but best practices are to use it functionally.

        You can omit semicolons, but best practices are to use them.

        You can use sloppy equality, but best practices are to always use strict.

        • TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          JavaScript reminds me of an older brother who happens to be the most laid back stoner you could meet. “Like yea man, you should probably use semicolons, but I ain’t gonna narc”

        • fidodo@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          After switching to typescript with linting and prettier I simply hate writing vanilla JavaScript anymore. Some people complain about the extra project setup needed but I find that time pays for itself immediately.

          • Andrew@mander.xyz
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            1 year ago

            Extra project setup like pnpm add -D typescript && tsc --init? One thing that is kinda annoying is that you have to manage were will js files go.

        • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          You need to remember that a lot of those best practices are to cover for the performance issues from misusing loosely typed variables.

          The JavaScript engine can compile clean, type-safe code down to be almost as fast as properly compiled code. When you use various features like the loose equals or various object mutations and the like, the engine cannot optimize it, leaving your code much, much slower.

            • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Yup! I love TypeScript, and I love the flexibility of JavaScript. With all of the type templates and generics and other black magic TypeScript has, it’s pretty easy to even support the crazy stuff like mixins and contextual parameters (if I’m not speaking too loosely while avoiding proper terms!).

              A lot of the crazy stuff won’t optimize, but at least it goes to show how it’s not really tying JavaScript’s hands even when requiring TS everywhere.

      • DrM@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        thanks to eslint enforcing it in the default rules it’s necessary for most typescript projects

        • Nato Boram@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Except that you should use Prettier for formatting instead of ESLint. That said, semicolons are useless noise

            • fidodo@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              It adds even more auto formatting rules so you can basically stop thinking about formatting entirely. I used to be opinionated about formatting but now I just go with whatever prettier does. It’s not always the best but it’s consistent and it’s a big chunk of my brain I can free up for things that matter. It also formats things safely so you don’t run into those weird edge cases where semicolons matter if you choose to turn them off.

              • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Aren’t some of the scenarios for needing a semicolon logical-domain problems and not syntax issues? I wouldn’t trust autoformatting to spot a logical problem, though I also hope no one is writing code that flippantly. (as if honest mistakes aren’t common enough!)

                • fidodo@lemm.ee
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                  1 year ago

                  Maybe there’s some edge case but in my years of using prettier I haven’t encountered one once.

          • Andrew@mander.xyz
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            1 year ago

            Never used eslint. prettier is a must. semicolons are only needed to split some rare TS syntax lines.

      • fidodo@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I wouldn’t do it without an auto formatter. With prettier it will catch potential no semi colon issues.

        • Andrew@mander.xyz
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          1 year ago

          You absolutely have to use prettier with JS. I don’t think there is auto adding missing semicolons in C/C++ though, it would be very useful.

      • EtzBetz@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        Yes, true. I also did setup so that any missing semicolon will be added, because I got sick of not inserting them sometimes and then some code was without them and some was. (Before I tested just leaving them all out, out of fun, so I got into the habit of just leaving them out regularly)