if you could pick a standard format for a purpose what would it be and why?
e.g. flac for lossless audio because…
(yes you can add new categories)
summary:
- photos .jxl
- open domain image data .exr
- videos .av1
- lossless audio .flac
- lossy audio .opus
- subtitles srt/ass
- fonts .otf
- container mkv (doesnt contain .jxl)
- plain text utf-8 (many also say markup but disagree on the implementation)
- documents .odt
- archive files (this one is causing a bloodbath so i picked randomly) .tar.zst
- configuration files toml
- typesetting typst
- interchange format .ora
- models .gltf / .glb
- daw session files .dawproject
- otdr measurement results .xml
I don’t give a removed which debugging format any platform picks, but if they could each pick one that every emulator reads and every compiler emits, that’d be removeding great.
Even more simpler, I’d really like if we could just unify whether or not
$
is needed for variables, and pick#
or//
for comments. I’m sick of breaking my brain when I flip between languages because of these stupid nuance inconsistencies.Don’t forget
;
is a comment in assembly.For extra fun, did you know
//
wasn’t standardized until C99? Comments in K&R C are all/* */
. Possibly the most tedious commending format ever devised.;
is also used by LISP.And there’s
REM
in BASIC.Batch files also use
REM
. Or::
. Each of which causes syntax errors in completely different scenarios.M4 says it uses
#
, but that’s an echo, anddnl
is for real comments.CSS still forces K&R style, but on reflection, that’s nothing compared to HTML’s
⋖!-- -->
nonsense. (Edit: or Lemmy’s idiotic erasure of HTML-like blocks. If they’re not allowed… show them as text, fools.)Fortran uses
!
orC
in the appropriate column.Alright that’s just hideous.
Forth uses
\
, and can do block comments with(
and)
, except)
is optional in interpreted mode.Algol 60 used
¢
. ¢ isn’t even in ASCII, so god knows how that “your two cents” joke ever happened. How can a language this boring still exemplify how all programmers are dorks?Visual Basic uses
'
because go removed yourself. QBASIC origins or not, I don’t know how this shipped without at least one meeting where somebody got stabbed. Even the Systems Hungarian heretics should have recoiled in horror.APL uses “⍝”, which isn’t even in any human language and was introduced specifically so that APL can have comments.
https://www.compart.com/en/unicode/U+235D
APL is its own special hell, on this front. A programming language you need a custom keyboard to type is like saying your favorite map projection is a globe. D-, did not read assignment.
/* */
is used in CSS as well, I think.Also we’ve got VB (and probably BASIC) out there using
'
because why not lol[EDIT] I stand corrected by another comment
REM
is what BASIC uses. DOS batch files use that, too. They’re old though, maybe we give them a pass “it’s okay grampa, let’s get you back to the museum” 🤣 (disclaimer: I am also old, don’t worry)It does not work like that.
$
is required in shell languages because they have quoteless strings and need to be super concise when calling commands.#
and//
are valid identifiers in many languages and all of them are well beyond the point of no return. My suggestion is to make use of your editor’s “turn this line into line comment” function and stop remembering them by yourself.That just sounds impossible given the absolute breadth of all platforms and architectures though.
One per-thing is fine.