this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
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Programming

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Are the characters used in syntax of most programming languages dependent on the keys of the standard keyboard or was the standard keyboard made specifically to allow programming with these keys? (lemm.ee)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by sylowosa@lemm.ee to c/programming@programming.dev
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The title would probably be confusing, but I could not make it better than this. I noticed that most programming languages are limited to the alphanumerical set along with the special characters present in a general keyboard. I wondered if this posed a barrier for developers on what characters they were limited to program in, or if it was intentional from the start that these keys would be the most optimal characters for a program to be coded in by a human and was later adopted as a standard for every user. Basically, are the modern keyboards built around programming languages or are programming languages built around these keyboards?

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[–] themoonisacheese@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, soft keyboards thend to do that yeah. But nobody is using a smartphone to program.

The point is that nobody is good enough at 05AB1E to type it by hand, everyone just has an idea of what they're trying to accomplish and copy-pastes commands from the documentation.

[–] snowe@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago

I wasn’t talking just touchscreen keyboards. On Mac you just hold option and you can type almost all of those letters. I do understand your point though. Thanks for explaining