TIL about the greek question mark

Tell me, can you tell the difference between these two characters?

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  • qaz@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Every syntax highligher shows this and VSCode even has a special case for this, this is not a real issue.

    • Kalash@feddit.ch
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      1 year ago

      I just tried and it just turns into a proper semicolon and everything works. (Sublime Text).

      That might explain that:

      In Unicode, it is separately encoded as U+037E ; GREEK QUESTION MARK, but the similarity is so great that the code point is normalised to U+003B ; SEMICOLON, making the marks identical in practice.

  • SomewhatOffBeat@ttrpg.network
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    1 year ago

    Like r/programmerhumor, this community is already full of people who literally never programmed anything more than Hello World before.

    • TimTamFlimFlam@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      And just like Reddit you’re complaining about it for absolutely no reason. How about we try to be a bit more welcoming and a bit less gatekeepery.

    • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      programming hello world is doing better than most people and I applaud and welcome beginners.

      I am little more than an amateur myself, entirely self taught, and yet I’m forever digging into various bits of code for my marketing job, because paying someone $400 to fix a recalcitrant css style in a week and a half is worse than just doing it myself.

    • ArmokGoB@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      Who the hell tries putting Greek question marks in their code? Like, I get most compilers will show you what character each error starts at, but still.

  • P1r4nha@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    I get this warning in my IDE (VS Code) so I feel safe:

    The character U+037e “;” could be confused with the ASCII character U+003b “;”, which is more common in source code.

    • XTornado@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Well, there goes my diabolical plan, crushed like a bug under someone else’s shoe. Back to the drawing board, I guess.

      • Comment105@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Would be weird to be crushed like a bug under anyone else than someone else’s or simply put your own shoe.

  • EtzBetz@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    Laughs in just removing all semicolons because it’s not necessary in JS.

  • drathvedro@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Вгь, Iмa gо sрrinкlе sоме cугilliс снаггастегs аll оvег sомеоnе’s lаrаvеl vаlidатiоn гules

    (The аеос’s are the most evil ones)

  • nxfsi@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Why did Unicode even allow these symbols even exist? What happened to using a single encoding for similar symbols like in CJK? Uriel must be rolling furiously in his grave rn

    • Squids@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      Because the point of unicode is to accurately depict every sort of writing regardless of format, not to make a neat table of every unique glyph. Fonts may want to render the two differently or treat them differently. Same reason why there’s a difference between an em dash and a quotation line mark

      Same reason why unicode is full of random characters that only ever appear like thrice in some Russian coptic manuscript from the 3rd century - it’s about being able to depict something, not perceived usefulness

      Also excuse my ignorance, but who’s Uriel? Because right now I just have the mental image of a very upset archangel which I’m guessing is not what you’re referring to. I mean it could be - I’m pretty sure unicode would fall under his domain of literature

  • alokir@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Use both the latin x and the cyrillic х as variable names in the same scope. Your coworkers will thank you.

  • Jordan Lund@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    The Greek question mark is a fraction of a mm thicker. :)

    I got used to seeing the same thing between O and 0 in certain fonts. O is wider than 0.