Spent 3 hours tracking down a semicolon that was breaking my whole script

I was working on a basic Python script last weekend to organize my recipe files, and nothing would run no matter what I changed. Turns out I had a semicolon after a function definition instead of a colon, and it took me forever to spot it because I was looking at the wrong lines. Has anyone else wasted a ton of time on a single tiny character that was hiding in plain sight?

2 comments

2 Comments

kelly.dylan3d ago

Isn't it funny how one wrong character can stop everything, like how a missing comma in a grocery list means you end up buying "cat food, and litter" instead of "cat food and litter"? It reminds me of those times I've locked myself out of my house because I forgot to jiggle the key just right. We get so focused on the big picture that the small stuff trips us up every time.

richard_sanchez433d ago

Setup a linter for your text editor and never looked back. It catches stuff like semicolons where colons should be, missing commas, even unused variables. After I added one to VS Code (it's literally a 2 minute setup), I started catching these tiny bugs before they waste my time. Also learned to use a syntax highlighting theme that colors different punctuation differently, so a semicolon and a colon don't look the same on my screen. Huge time saver, especially late at night when my eyes are tired.