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
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 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.