The undisputed champion of causing syntax errors

Description

A cartoon meme depicting a winner's podium at a sports stadium. A large yellow banner at the top reads 'PROGRAMMING HIDE AND SEEK CHAMPIONSHIP'. On the first-place platform, a semicolon character stands with its arms raised in victory. On the second-place platform, a closing parenthesis character looks down in defeat. On the third-place platform, a closing curly brace character stands with its hands clasped, looking disappointed. The background shows a large, blurred-out crowd. The humor is aimed at programmers who have spent frustrating amounts of time searching for a missing character that is causing a syntax error. The semicolon is crowned the 'champion' because in many C-style languages (like C++, Java, or JavaScript), a missing semicolon can be notoriously difficult to spot, often causing the compiler to report an error on a completely different line, making it the ultimate master of 'hide and seek' in code

Common Tags

SyntaxErrors CompilerErrors BugsInSoftware CodingHumor DeveloperHumor DeveloperMemes DeveloperInJokes

Comments

118

Anonymous ★ Top Pick A missing semicolon is the ultimate gaslighter; it convinces the compiler that the perfectly valid code on the next line is the root of all evil

Anonymous ★ Top Pick

A missing semicolon is the ultimate gaslighter; it convinces the compiler that the perfectly valid code on the next line is the root of all evil
Anonymous

Semicolon wins every year - turns out even in a cloud of 400 microservices, the most distributed thing in the system is the missing token hiding two screens above your diff
Anonymous

After 15 years in the industry, I've learned that semicolons aren't actually hiding - they're just practicing eventual consistency with your codebase, appearing exactly three commits after the production deployment
Anonymous

The real champions of hide-and-seek in programming aren't the developers - they're the race conditions that only appear in production, the off-by-one errors that survive code review, and the memory leaks that take three months to surface. This podium perfectly captures the irony: we celebrate finding what was deliberately hidden, yet spend most of our careers hunting bugs that hide themselves in plain sight within millions of lines of code, only revealing themselves at 3 AM during a critical deployment
Anonymous

{ snags gold because it hides decades of untested legacy bugs inside massive single blocks, forcing juniors to seek closure for weeks
Anonymous

Semicolon takes gold - perfect at hiding until the compiler screams or ASI rewrites your intent; ) gets silver for gaslighting diff tools, and } grabs bronze by quietly relocating your scope into prod
Anonymous

The semicolon always takes gold - vanishing on the previous line, passing locally via ASI, then failing CI the moment someone enables -Werror
@sylfn 5y

use autoomplete
@Odbjorn 5y

that's why you use Python
1. Deleted Account 5y
  
  tab or 4 spaces?
  
  @RiedleroD 5y
  
  oh I hate that whenever it happens. I always use tabs, and apparently everyone else uses spaces.
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  i mean, :s/ / /gm
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  but fuck identation based syntax in general
  
  @RiedleroD 5y
  
  I think it looks nicer, but yeah, it's not as robust.
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  it is nice in a world where ppl don't use spaces for identation
  
  @RiedleroD 5y
  
  true.
  
  @zakaryan2004 5y
  
  Ohno
  
  @mr_oz 5y
  
  Tabs that ide convert to spaces))
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  :s/ / /gm
  
  @bommelhopser 5y
  
  2 spaces
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  3 spaces
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  the correct answer is 2 spaces
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  the correct answer is 4: 3 and 5 alternating
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  what are you
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  i am the one who dislikes identation cringe syntax
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  reject snec embrace clang-format
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  i believe everyone does
  
  @zakaryan2004 5y
  
  4
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  4 seems a bit too big
  
  @zakaryan2004 5y
  
  Is it?
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  8, only 8
  
  @Supuhstar 5y
  
  X3 I had a co-worker who always used 7
  
  @dugeru42 5y
  
  Pep
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  >snek
@karim_mahyari 5y

Parentheses are worse than semicolons IMO
1. Deleted Account 5y
  
  spaces are far, faaar worse
Deleted Account 5y

well, on even lines only, on every odd line it's 5 actually
@zakaryan2004 5y

Lel
@Supuhstar 5y

YEP
@sashakity 5y

ODD numbers
@sashakity 5y

that is cursed
Deleted Account 5y

that's what linux kernel does, please reconsider
1. Deleted Account 5y
  
  "if you need less than 8 you write bad code"
2. @Supuhstar 5y
  
  Linux kernel does a lot I don't agree with
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  i think compiling without aliasing is wrong
@Supuhstar 5y

Nah, still use 4. If it starts getting uncomfortable, that's a sign that it needs to be redesigned to reduce unnecessary nesting
@sashakity 5y

highlight what?
@sashakity 5y

anything greater than 2 bugs me
@sashakity 5y

because theres too much empty space
1. @Supuhstar 5y
  
  Anything other than 4 bugs me because there's too much or to little XD
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  that's why you should use clang-format
2. @zakaryan2004 5y
  
  Please join the group
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  this group?
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  yes
  
  @zakaryan2004 5y
  
  You are writing on comments section
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  it has 128 members, if me typing in here is a problem then i just wont
  
  @zakaryan2004 5y
  
  I don't see any problem with 128 members
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  id just rather not be in large groups
  
  @zakaryan2004 5y
  
  Well, if you like missing messages, then ok
  
  @zakaryan2004 5y
  
  And I don't see why you wouldn't want to be in the group as you are already technically here
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  cause no notifications or giant unread counter
  
  @zakaryan2004 5y
  
  There is a discussion group
  
  @Supuhstar 5y
  
  Every time you send a message without replying, it shows up as a reply to this image x3
  
  @zakaryan2004 5y
  
  Not only that, but he won't see messages directly replied to him or inside the photo's reply thread
  
  @Supuhstar 5y
  
  *her And yeah
  
  @zakaryan2004 5y
  
  I don't see anything pointing to them being a woman
  
  @Supuhstar 5y
  
  Hence me letting y'all know :3
  
  @zakaryan2004 5y
  
  okay
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  use per, like stallman
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  obtw sign the support letter
  
  @Supuhstar 5y
  
  :o???
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  per, short for person
  
  @Supuhstar 5y
  
  Cute!!
  
  @zakaryan2004 5y
  
  they is much better tbh
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  it's plural, he laid out problems with it too
  
  @zakaryan2004 5y
  
  actually they is considered a singular pronoun for unknown gender
  
  @zakaryan2004 5y
  
  if a person has problems with "they", then they have a problem with English
  
  @zakaryan2004 5y
  
  and if they have a problem with English, they should either bear it or not communicate with it
  
  @Supuhstar 5y
  
  Also, it's easy to remove gendered terms from most languages
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  not that easy actually
  
  @Supuhstar 5y
  
  I would love a challenge, but I've done it in Romance languages
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  do it in russian, you'll fail miserably
  
  @Supuhstar 5y
  
  Mhmm! I also conjugate the verbs correctly: They's baking a cake. They goes to the store.
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  i'd conjugate it as plural
  
  @Supuhstar 5y
  
  Only when I talk about groups of individuals, andor systems
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  wrong
  
  @Supuhstar 5y
  
  Only "wrong" to you, not to me
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  fair
  
  @zakaryan2004 5y
  
  then you are speaking English wrong
  
  @Supuhstar 5y
  
  According to whom?
  
  @zakaryan2004 5y
  
  they're baking a cake they are going to the store
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  yes just like you pronoun
  
  @zakaryan2004 5y
  
  you need to say per's technically because: this is his bag this is per bag (this means "this is person bag") so you need to say this is per's bag
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  oh no
@sashakity 5y

AHH and you have the curlybracket on a newline
1. @Supuhstar 5y
  
  function { } It's the one true way
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  yes
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  allman is the one true way, atleast in c++
Deleted Account 5y

and enjoy the broken code
@sashakity 5y

my computer science proffessor insists its a good idea to put curly brackets on newlines and also put system("pause"); at the end of every program (even tho visual studio automatically pauses it)
1. Deleted Account 5y
  
  the system() shit, i hate it
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  mf takes off points if we dont include it too 😔
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  it doesn't work on not shit-os machines
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  yeah exactly
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  put system("sleep 9999999");
@Supuhstar 5y

UwU
Deleted Account 5y

this
@Supuhstar 5y

Oh, I thought Geg meant Sasha
@Supuhstar 5y

In mine? I don't see that in Sasha's
Deleted Account 5y

ok, so we left off on clang-format being the best tool ever
1. Deleted Account 5y
  
  oh and don't use python
2. @Supuhstar 5y
  
  REAL devs write their code on lined paper and have an AI scan and parse it
  
  @zakaryan2004 5y
  
  Yeah, and send it through fax
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  real devs compile by hand
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  nono, comile and run in their brain
Deleted Account 5y

How about " "
1. @Supuhstar 5y
  
  Oh yeah Python lol
@Supuhstar 5y

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The undisputed champion of causing syntax errors

Description

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