Life is grand - Latest Comments in Before the comma

Re: Before the comma

cleek — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 16:49:00 -0000

a leading comma makes it clear that the line is a continuation of the one above it.

it's still ugly and wrong.

Re: Before the comma

Octavo — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 06:24:00 -0000

Meh, it should be quite clear why this was done this way:

To screw with your mind. You will now spend at least 30 mins and one blog post wondering about why MS did this. Other people will attempt to justify it. In the end MS has achieved their sinister goals - massive producivity loss... :p

Re: Before the comma

Michael Butler — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 17:05:00 -0000

I use the comma at the beginning of a line method too.

a) because it makes it easy to comment out bits of code without having to alter the line above to remove the trailing comma

for the similiar reasons my where clauses look like

where
a = b
or
c = d
and
a > b

so much easier to comment out bits of code whilst debugging the query

Re: Before the comma

Paul Watson — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 13:10:00 -0000

That is the likely explanation Colin but I'd hope the SQL team came to that coding style after some thought rather than just one coders preference.

Anybody know if I can change the templates in Management Studio?

Re: Before the comma

Colin D. Devroe — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 12:56:00 -0000

It has more to do with the preference of the man or woman that built that specific function in SQL... I seriously doubt there are any good studies that show someone would be more likely to leave a trailing comma than a preceding one. But I've been wrong before.

Re: Before the comma

Paul Watson — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 12:26:00 -0000

Possibly but after awhile I will become blind to commas preceding the value just as I am now blind to commas after the value.

Re: Before the comma

Steve Crane — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 12:15:00 -0000

I think it's just a visual reminder that makes it less likely to forget to add a comma when appending or inserting to the column list.