Timeline for Content Dispute for "Why do programming languages, especially C, use curly braces and not square ones?"
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
8 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Feb 28, 2013 at 17:25 | comment | added | gnat | @MichaelT what about editing the question to add a sufficiently compelling justification for why it is substantial (not idle curiousity) and specific enough to show it's not too broad (to prevent NARQ)? Since question is currently locked, justification can be drafted right here, at Meta - and serve as a base to request moderators to unlock the question for editing. I did something like that in the past (Jon Lord FTW), works like a charm | |
| Feb 28, 2013 at 14:44 | comment | added | user40980 | @minusSeven I had a college class in compiler and language design that went over some of the decisions in languages. I've researched the history of some myself. And this one showed that it was an arbitrary shorthand that likely made its way into a language influenced by the language using that shorthand. That is a valid answer. One doesn't need the diary of Kernigan to show the chains of thought | |
| Feb 28, 2013 at 12:59 | comment | added | minusSeven | I disagree . How do you know for certainty that there was no rational behind creating '{' ? Maybe there was some rational behind making the choices at that time. Maybe there was some rationale it was just not documented well. Unless you were part of that team that created that language how can you possible know such things ? | |
| Feb 27, 2013 at 16:14 | comment | added | user40980 | For # for cpp (or @ for objective c) there are real design decisions that were made - that the character currently had no place in the language and thus prefixing a token with the character insulates it from future changes to the base language. Real language design decisions are based on this which can make it a practical question (even if just curious for the asker). Understanding that some decisions were arbitrary and others were thought out to address particular reasons. "Those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it" or something like that... | |
| Feb 27, 2013 at 15:11 | comment | added | gnat | I do not insist that adding it would salvage the question, merely point that your answer made me understand that lack of justification why curly braces could be special compared to # ^ ! is a problem that would certainly make me vote to close the question. Whether justification would be sufficiently compelling to deal with this is a different matter, I need to think it through some more... | |
| Feb 27, 2013 at 14:43 | comment | added | user29079 | @gnat This is a bit off-topic, but I don't quite see how a reference to a Wiki link, that in turn contains no links to any form of authority on the subject, adds any weight or value to the question. | |
| Feb 27, 2013 at 14:28 | comment | added | gnat | question (in its current form) certainly lacks references that would support an assumption that curly braces are somehow special. It could at least refer reader to Wikipedia article List of C-based programming languages and its statement "Broadly speaking, C-family languages are those that use C-like block syntax (including curly braces to begin and end the block)." | |
| Feb 27, 2013 at 14:17 | history | answered | user29079 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |