JavaScript Semicolons Are Not Necessary

  • From Google, authors of V8 and Chrome, if their opinion means anything to you: https://google.github.io/styleguide/javascriptguide.xml?show...

  • I remember having a bug once in (I think) IE8 where I had a comma after the last element an an array (like the 'greatarray' shown in this article.

    The browser didn't accept a comma after the last element in an array and IIRC the compiler breaks so badly that it puts the reported error at line 1 character 1, possibly for a different file entirely.

    Spent a LONG time on that.

    I kind of reject his assertion that JavaScript without semi colons is "better code"

    The logic, flow, maintainability, understandability, performance and, actually doing the right thing all make for better code.

    Semicolons? Not so much.

  • Semicolon presence or absence is usually the least annoying factor to me in how other people write their JavaScript code.