JavaScript syntax lets you write statements over multiple lines - if the first line cannot be parsed correctly it assumes you meant to continue over to the second line. This leads to odd error messages and JavaScript being harder to debug without semicolons.

Note that this is different to, say, Python, where newline explicitly indicates termination of a statement.

Well, Python will let certain statements continue over multiple lines as well, e.g.

  someFunction(parameterOne,
               parameterTwo)

I think maybe the difference is that Python has always treated newlines the way it does now. JavaScript, on the other hand, has developed idioms based on the semicolon model. So has the rug has been snatched out from underneith its users by suddenly making them optional? Does the change make a lot of useful idioms harder to implement?

ok here's a more usual situation in which the programmer is blindly using their favorite bracketing style, and come across the issue...

function getObject()

{

    return       // returns undefined, not the object.

    {

        age: 30,

        name: "axod"

    }

}

Personally I hate that style of bracketing, but some swear by it.

Yeah, not really my favourite bracketing style either. Good example though - it is conceivable that this could happen.