VSCode will add a yellow box around the character and tell you it's an uncommon glyph.

https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_63#_unicode-highlighting

To note, this came about because it could be valid code and it's a security risk from copy/pasting malicious code. See:

https://certitude.consulting/blog/en/invisible-backdoor/

Just tested in the console, it gives an illegal character error and gives you the line number.

It would work for someone just starting and not knowing good tooling yet. However, the compiler should also tell you where to look and give you the area to look at as well. It'll be less clear than an IDE, though.

Yeah, doing something similar with brackets would be much more effective since that usually doesn't give a line number. Is there a unicode clone of )?

Yup. It's as if we're assuming this friend is coding inside Notepad.

Not only that, the interpreter will point directly to the line of code and possibly to the exact character that is the problem. Any programmer worth anything would find the issue or, worst case, retype the line of code and have the problem fixed rather quickly. “Illegal character” is a pretty easy error to diagnose.

But…I still chuckled a little at the intent of the joke. I’m sure there are better pranks one could come up with, though.

rule 24

Before I read this comment I believed the concept of hell was immoral.

you are a criminal.

I had a friend who was a compsci minor who did almost the entirety of said minor on a really old chromebook. They did everything on a basic text editor. You would be surprised

Some hairs under the lens, it gives some funny erratic moves of the pointer.

If you get a post-it just right halfway over the lens, the mouse will only move in one direction!

Running #define ; anything yields error: macro names must be identifiers for both C and C++ in an online compiler. So I don't think the compiler will let you redefine the semicolon.

I'm not sure but I think the second one looks just a tiny bit different, so it should have worked.

What? Remapping your keyboard? Well, there are worst jokes, I still remember that time when the first PCs appeared and you could try them in shopping centers. They quickly stopped doing this, because some went into the BIOS and disabled the keyboard or worse, the screen, Hail Satan. Good ol' times 😏