While not professionally diagnosed, I am sure I have a case of Timor Crispus Adstringit. My case may be mild, but I have deep empathy for any that may suffer a more acute or persistent affliction. Until yesterday I thought I had overcome Timor Crispus Adstringit since I can do this with no ill effects:

d = {'key1':[value1, value2],
        'key2':[value1, value2]}

Yesterday a co-worker something similar to this to me for help in debugging a site issue:

window.addEventListener("load", function () {
  iframe.style.display = "none";
  document.body.appendChild(iframe);
});

code credit

It triggered what I can only explain as a ‘Flight or Fight’ response. Elevated heart rate, sweating, nervousness. While there were more than 2 { } in the snippet he sent, it was just a little JavaScript.

I am sure Timor Crispus Adstringit is not uncommon. Frequently “what’s with all these curly braces?” is expressed on various podcasts I listen to. I feel the need to at least have a good understanding of JavaScript. How can I overcome this annoying condition?

Update 01/15/2019

It is almost a year after the first publication date of this post. While written as a tongue-in-cheek commentary on non-whitespace delimited languages it is a fair assessment of how I felt at the time.

With some irony, my attendance at Pycon 2018 cemented the fact that I needed to know some JavaScript to be relevant. So I started an on-line JavaScript course and found it fun and delightful. I’ll post about that at some point.