Syntactically Correct Smiley Faces

This post will attempt to answer the question on everyone’s minds: How can I use smiley faces in my code? Apart from the obvious smiley faces you can put in comments and strings, here’s what I’ve found:

Python

Unfortunately the closest I could find for Python was with slicing:

l = [1, 2, 3]
l[1:] # :]
l[:1] # [:

Everywhere else in Python the round bracket and colon end up being in the wrong order :(. For example def f():, or [1,2,3][1:(2+3)].

Haskell

Haskell’s list data constructor is :, so we can do:

λ> (:) 'V' "alid Smiley"
"Valid Smiley"

You can also make your own functions or data constructors, for example here’s a smiley function with a curly tuft of hair:

(@:) :: String -> String
(@:) s = s ++ " @:)"

λ> (@:) "Hi!"
"Hi! @:)"

Unfortunately it seems the smiley bracket can’t be a part of the function/constructor name itself, we just have to make sure we use the function in prefix notation :(.

Haskell’s multi-line comments give us some smiling/squeamish cyclopes:

{-
Smiling cyclopes
-}