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by MrHamdulay 5328 days ago
That's the idea. Python uses the same syntax for multi-line strings as for comments.
2 comments

This is completely wrong. Triple quotes in Python indicate a string. It happens to be able to be used for a multi-line comment because it officially leaves no artifact in the AST if it's not assigned to anything (can't find the documentation for this atm).

/ * ... * / is a comment in Javascript. Changing it to mean multi-line string is a terrible idea.

This list of changes to Javascript borrows so much from Python I'm surprised they didn't also borrow Python's multi-line string syntax.

> Python uses the same syntax for multi-line strings as for comments.

No it does not. Triple-quoted strings are still strings, all comments in Python are prefixed with `#`.

There are two situations where triple quoted strings are used as "comments":

* Multiline comments for lazy people, as Python has no multiline comment syntax

* docstrings. As the name indicate, they're strings, they're not comments and should not be confused by more ad-hoc systems such as javadoc comments. Python lets you write `help(name)` and get the docstring associated with the object

Damn, I just got comfortable with functions being first class constructs, now I have to get used to the idea of comment meta-programming.