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Re: Removing influences from a language

From bart <bc@freeuk.com>
Newsgroups comp.lang.misc
Subject Re: Removing influences from a language
Date 2025-11-10 11:00 +0000
Organization A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID <10esgjv$3u6qk$1@dont-email.me> (permalink)
References (7 earlier) <10erd74$3ljha$1@dont-email.me> <10erdir$3lupj$2@dont-email.me> <10ere59$3ljha$2@dont-email.me> <10erng6$3o93c$1@dont-email.me> <10es6su$3rf3r$2@dont-email.me>

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On 10/11/2025 08:14, David Brown wrote:
> On 10/11/2025 04:51, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
>> On Mon, 10 Nov 2025 01:12:10 +0000, bart wrote:
>>
>>> I also have a small problem with all those trailing commas.
>>
>> I don’t. I use them to indicate that there’s nothing special about the
>> last item in the list, you can add more after that if you want. This
>> is usually the case in high-level languages.
>>
> 
> Trailing commas also make such tables and lists easier to maintain.  You 
> can cut, copy and paste more easily, and adding new items only affects 
> the new lines - it does not mean changing existing lines.  In a world of 
> git, svn, and other version control software, it is a significant 
> advantage if changes to code only affect the lines that have a 
> meaningful change.

Yeah, I made the same point about semicolons in the one of the A68 
threads, and I was just insulted.

However, by trailing commas here, I meant the ones at the end of each 
line when lists are laid out one item per line.

I was looking at ways to eliminate those, as semicolons are in many 
languages, or at least made optional.

Tabulated data in printed material usually doesn't have such punctuation.



> 
>> In C code, on the other hand, the last item in an array is often a
>> sentinel to indicate the end of the list, e.g.
>>
>>      static PyMethodDef discipline_methods[] =
>>        {
>>          {"makedict", discipline_makedict, METH_VARARGS,
>>              "makedict(«tuple of pairs», «message»)\n\n"
>>              "displays a message and makes a dictionary from a tuple"
>>              " of (key, value) pairs. Raises a ValueError exception if"
>>              " any key or value is ExceptMe."
>>          },
>>          {"factorize", discipline_factorize, METH_VARARGS,
>>              "factorize(«n»)\n\n"
>>              "returns a tuple of integer pairs («i», «r») representing 
>> the"
>>              "prime factors of positive integer «n», where «i» is a 
>> prime"
>>              " number and «r» is the number of times «i» occurs as a 
>> factor"
>>              " of «n». Raises a ValueError exception if any «i» or «r» 
>> equals 5."
>>          },
>>          END_STRUCT_LIST
>>        };
>>
>> That lack of a comma means you shouldn’t be adding anything after that
>> last item.

(Why not? Maybe you do want to add another option. Or you want to remove 
or comment that last one. Same issue with semicolons. Make all lines 
have the same rank.)

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Thread

Removing influences from a language bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-11-08 16:16 +0000
  Re: Removing influences from a language Mikko <mikko.levanto@iki.fi> - 2025-11-09 12:30 +0200
    Re: Removing influences from a language David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2025-11-09 12:22 +0100
      Re: Removing influences from a language "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2025-11-09 14:20 +0100
      Re: Removing influences from a language bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-11-09 14:09 +0000
        Re: Removing influences from a language David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2025-11-09 15:40 +0100
          Re: Removing influences from a language bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-11-09 15:17 +0000
            Re: Removing influences from a language David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2025-11-09 17:42 +0100
              Re: Removing influences from a language bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-11-09 20:07 +0000
              Re: Removing influences from a language Tristan Wibberley <tristan.wibberley+netnews2@alumni.manchester.ac.uk> - 2026-02-02 02:32 +0000
            Re: Removing influences from a language Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-11-09 23:35 +0000
              Re: Removing influences from a language bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-11-10 00:56 +0000
                Re: Removing influences from a language Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-11-10 01:02 +0000
                Re: Removing influences from a language bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-11-10 01:12 +0000
                Re: Removing influences from a language Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-11-10 03:51 +0000
                Re: Removing influences from a language David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2025-11-10 09:14 +0100
                Re: Removing influences from a language bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-11-10 11:00 +0000
                Re: Removing influences from a language David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2025-11-10 14:13 +0100
                Re: Removing influences from a language bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-11-10 16:20 +0000
                Re: Removing influences from a language David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2025-11-10 17:33 +0100
                Re: Removing influences from a language bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-11-10 21:01 +0000
                Re: Removing influences from a language David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2025-11-11 12:33 +0100
                Re: Removing influences from a language Tristan Wibberley <tristan.wibberley+netnews2@alumni.manchester.ac.uk> - 2026-02-02 03:13 +0000
                Re: Removing influences from a language Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2025-11-11 12:59 +0100
                Re: Removing influences from a language bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-11-11 15:08 +0000
                Re: Removing influences from a language Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-11-11 20:44 +0000
                Re: Removing influences from a language bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-11-11 23:16 +0000
                Re: Removing influences from a language Tristan Wibberley <tristan.wibberley+netnews2@alumni.manchester.ac.uk> - 2026-02-02 03:09 +0000
                Re: Removing influences from a language David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2026-02-02 11:32 +0100
                Re: Removing influences from a language Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2026-02-02 16:32 +0100
                Re: Removing influences from a language Tristan Wibberley <tristan.wibberley+netnews2@alumni.manchester.ac.uk> - 2026-02-08 15:52 +0000
                Re: Removing influences from a language Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2026-02-08 17:51 +0100
                Re: Removing influences from a language Tristan Wibberley <tristan.wibberley+netnews2@alumni.manchester.ac.uk> - 2026-02-09 16:58 +0000
                Re: Removing influences from a language ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) - 2026-02-09 18:01 +0000
                Re: Removing influences from a language Tristan Wibberley <tristan.wibberley+netnews2@alumni.manchester.ac.uk> - 2026-02-09 23:44 +0000
                Re: Removing influences from a language Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-02-10 06:41 +0000
                Re: Removing influences from a language Tristan Wibberley <tristan.wibberley+netnews2@alumni.manchester.ac.uk> - 2026-02-10 14:40 +0000
                Re: Removing influences from a language Tristan Wibberley <tristan.wibberley+netnews2@alumni.manchester.ac.uk> - 2026-02-09 23:40 +0000
                Re: Removing influences from a language Tristan Wibberley <tristan.wibberley+netnews2@alumni.manchester.ac.uk> - 2026-02-05 19:49 +0000
                Re: Removing influences from a language ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) - 2026-02-06 03:01 +0000
                Re: Removing influences from a language ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) - 2026-02-11 12:07 +0000
                Re: Removing influences from a language Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-02-11 22:44 +0000
                Re: Removing influences from a language David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2026-02-12 16:56 +0100
                Re: Removing influences from a language Michael S <already5chosen@yahoo.com> - 2026-02-08 11:01 +0200
                Re: Removing influences from a language David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2026-02-08 14:37 +0100
                Re: Removing influences from a language Michael S <already5chosen@yahoo.com> - 2026-02-08 15:57 +0200
                Re: Removing influences from a language David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2026-02-08 16:34 +0100
              Re: Removing influences from a language Tristan Wibberley <tristan.wibberley+netnews2@alumni.manchester.ac.uk> - 2026-02-02 02:39 +0000
          Re: Removing influences from a language Tristan Wibberley <tristan.wibberley+netnews2@alumni.manchester.ac.uk> - 2026-02-02 02:07 +0000
    Re: Removing influences from a language Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-11-09 20:59 +0000
  Re: Removing influences from a language bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-11-13 17:16 +0000
  Re: Removing influences from a language bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-11-13 22:39 +0000

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