Reassuring, sort of

I guess it’s reassuring. Amid the invasion by celebrities turning Substack into MSNBC and increasing Andreessen’s share value, the native Substackers are still quibbling about Oxford commas and em-dashes.

I stopped using em-dashes about 10 years ago, obviously not because it resembled ChatGPT. Simply because the usual way of doing it—like this—is confusing. Words are meant to be separate, not joined by a punctuation that separates phrases. The welding created groups where there should be pauses, and pauses where there should be groups.

Before and after:

2009 with em-dashes.

2015 with three dots instead of em-dashes.

I follow the same standard in programming. The conventional style in C++ and Javascript is confusing in the same way, visually joining what should be separated.