Still no semi colon in JS for v5 ?

[MathRobin]

Hi,

You still keep no-semi colon style for v5 ? Why ? Most people (majority ?) still consider that semicolon are needed and are not an option. And they are not, I don't need to remember you that there is still ASI. So why not use them ?
Innocent question, not a troll.

[Luke-zhang-04]

The code compiles to distribution with semicolons, so it doesn't change the way Bootstrap works in production.

[MathRobin]

Because there is something which can manage sht, is not an excuse to make sht. It's like if you say, I can make something stupid with matches, there are firemen next door.

[mdo]

It's still our style, yes. No plans to change this.

[MathRobin]

OK, seems legit. Even if I still don't understand why bootstrap is the only project with this style...

[Johann-S]

it seems we are not alone according to: https://standardjs.com/ @MathRobin

[Deckluhm]

The cognitive load added by semicolon (and more generally all optional characters) is the number one reason I don't use semicolon in JS (and most optional characters in Ruby as well).

You obviously need to get used to it but once you are, it makes code simpler and easier to read.

You can argue there are some edge cases and you are right but I feel like they are too rare to keep semicolon everywhere (and tools like ESLint/Prettier/TypeScript will probably warn you about edge cases).

[MathRobin]

The argument of the cognitive load is interesting. I read it like it's "I have to think about washing my hands after eating. What a cognitive load". Hell, it's so obvious that it's no more a cognitive load...

The edge cases you told are not a good argument too in favor of using semi colon. Because for the most they are rare and like you said, there are linters, transpilers, etc.

[mohe2015]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript_syntax#Whitespace_and_semicolons might be interesting to read. I basically agree with MathRobin now that I read it but I also agree with the others. So I assume it's mostly personal taste and big projects have to choose one which is no semicolons in this case. Also it seems like tooling prevents most real issues.

[Deckluhm]

The argument of the cognitive load is interesting. I read it like it's "I have to think about washing my hands after eating. What a cognitive load". Hell, it's so obvious that it's no more a cognitive load...

It actually became obvious because you learned to do it, but it wasn't obvious in the first place (I'm learning code to a beginner and it's definitely not always obvious to him when to put or not to put comas and semicolons).

Even if I have a personal preference for "no semicolon", I think there are pros and cons in using or not using them.

I'm not trying to convince you not to use semicolon, I just want you to understand there are valid reasons not to use them (maybe not valid enough for you 😉).

[MathRobin]

There are probably some good reasons, I'm just still searching them.
Maybe I guess I think it's obvious to use them, because in many/most(/all ?) human languages, there is always a dot at the end of a sentence which indicates the end of the sentence, like the semi colons indicate the end of a line. So maybe it influences me...