Published 2026-05-16
tag(s): #programming #overblown-minor-annoyances
In case you needed more evidence that people can be complicated (where people =
me), let's take a look at one thing I absolutely hate on the grounds of
"correctness" and one another that I only strongly dislike despite being
"more correct".
I can try for hours to come up with a sentence that expresses how much I absolutely
despise with all my heart these practices, but it is impossible to pack enough hate
and disdain even with potentially an infinite amount of words.
I would need to come up with new words, and I am not skilled enough (in English nor Spanish)
for that.
In case you aren't familiar with these, lucky you, it is about writing lists of "things" in code. Let's use Python, though I've seen it more commonly in SQL and JS:
a_list_of_things = ["one thing",
"second thing", # trailing comma 🤢
]
another_list_of_things = [ "one thing"
,"second thing" # for each one of these
,"more things" # commas I feel my blood
,"so far, the last thing" # getting closer to boiling
]
The logic goes, or so it has been explained to me, that then it is easier to add more elements
to the lists, and keeping the syntax correct.
There's but a little flaw with that justification: shouldn't you TEST YOUR FUCKING CODE to
avoid that problem in the first place, rather than writing your lists like a monster.
"[...] programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute"
- Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
Haven't we agreed that this is the most important thing when writing code? You don't write
"I love the beach, the sea, wind," and leave that last comma lingering there. That's
not even a proper sentence!!!
What are we even doing. What's the point. You are gonna run tests, or
compile, or the very least still test whatever you just wrote works.
The best clue is in how Python (in this case, but works for everything really) tells you the
list looks like:
>>> another_list_of_things
['one thing', 'second thing', 'more things', 'so far, the last thing']
Are the commas before, or after, the items? Of course not, the interpreter tries to make
things easy to read for you. But then you go and write you code with those stupid commas
fjdlkjaskfljruefmewuiqr I fucking hate it, for real.
And lately at work I am reviewing lots of code and there's no standard for this, so PRs have
all kind of comma styles and I have no reason to enforce "don't write your list of SQL
fields/elements/etc. as a deranged person". So I have to accept the PRs and then I shed a
tear for each item in the list, and I can feel despair closing in on my soul, as my faith in
humanity is chipped away one comma at a time.
Oh and by the way, any arguments that lists are easier to edit when using these demonic constructs, go back into the "then get a better editor" point (which I used recently). Honestly, even if you are not using Emacs (or vi), moving to the beginning or end of a line should be very easy all the same.
Still here? Wasn't that enough ranting? 👀
OK then, let me argue the complete opposite, for arbitrary reasons, when it comes to
QUOTES.
I hate[1] when any application replaces my " with the curly quote
variant. And same with '.
Look, I get it. Using "ASCII quotes" everywhere is not entirely correct. There's
specific quotes for specific contexts. When I use the q tag on this very site,
you don't get a plain old ". Sometimes I wish you would, but...[2]
I haven't checked, but I am sure I must have ranted before about tools not supporting extended
character sets and the á and à in my name.
So if copy-pasting text with proper, grammatically correct quotes is a PITA, wouldn't that be
a problem on the apps inter-operating, rather than something to blame on the quotes? Or a
problem with Windows, not defaulting to UTF-8 everywhere? Or...etc etc etc, but it's never on
"the quotes".
Well...yes. But honestly, using " and ' everywhere just make sense to me. Same as keeping
my hyphen repertoire limited to -.
Does that make me a monster, in your eyes? Can you let me get away with this one...?
I mean, at least I write my comma-separated lists properly!
At least I acknowledge the contradiction. And the arbitrariness. 🫣