strange programmer habits : commas at the beginning of lines

So, consider this C program:

#include <stdio.h> char *verbs[] = { "quit" , "score" , "inventory" , "go" , "get" , NULL }; int main() { int i; for( i = 0; verbs[ i ] != NULL; i++ ) { printf( "verb %02d: %s\n", i, verbs[ i ] ); } }

or it's javascript equivalent::

var verbs = [ "quit" , "score" , "inventory" , "go" , "get" ]; for( var i = 0, il = verbs.length; i < il; i++ ) { console.log( "verb " + i + ": " + verbs[ i ] ) }

Both these programs declare an array of strings and then print them out. But contrary to popular convention, the commas separating individual elements of the verbs array come not at the end of the line, but at the beginning.

The compiler (or interpreter) couldn't care less about this stylistic convention, of course. All it cares about is if there are commas between array elements. The comma-first style is there to make it easier for you to add, delete or move single lines in the array. By putting the comma at the beginning of the line, you move the elements in the array around without having to manually add (or remove) a trailing comma at the end of the array.

This strange habit doesn't effect the output your compiler produces and it's main benefit is to save a couple milliseconds when cutting and pasting entries in an array. But a small number of programmers (myself included) have gotten used to seeing arrays that look like this, so don't be surprised if you see this style from time to time.