Programming

17524 readers

618 users here now

Welcome to the main community in programming.dev! Feel free to post anything relating to programming here!

Cross posting is strongly encouraged in the instance. If you feel your post or another person's post makes sense in another community cross post into it.

Hope you enjoy the instance!

Rules

Follow the programming.dev instance rules
Keep content related to programming in some way
If you're posting long videos try to add in some form of tldr for those who don't want to watch videos

Wormhole

Follow the wormhole through a path of communities !webdev@programming.dev

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

snowe@programming.dev

Ategon@programming.dev

MaungaHikoi@lemmy.nz

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

40 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] OofShoot@beehaw.org 15 points 1 year ago

Programming languages are build around the standard keyboard. Keyboards had most of the symbols you're thinking of from their typewriter days. You can see most of the special characters in these small typewriters from the mid 1900s.

https://dealdashreviewed.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/typerwriter.jpg

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gdj1kOXgkTY/UqYxNGAxBBI/AAAAAAAA8T0/DTeg3C_ydXM/s1600/71-6zsvcleL._SL1500_.jpg

With things like electric Wheel Writer typewriters, adding extra keys and symbols were less of a complexity issue and you started to see a few more extra symbols.

https://www.imagine41.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/ibm_wheelwriter_2500_002_1.jpg

Recognize that there never has been a hard standard for layouts and symbols, just the industry copying and converging on systems that became popular.