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? - eviltoast

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?

  • BradleyUffner@lemmy.worldEnglish
    52·
    1 year ago

    Some of the “toy” languages used for code-golf can use some very non standard characters. Saying “all programming languages” is going to be very restrictive.

    • sylowosa@lemm.eeOP
      1·
      1 year ago

      Fixed ‘all’. I tried to acknowledge that there may be other languages that may not follow this rule, but I seem to have not noticed this mistake.

      • BradleyUffner@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        Ohh very much so. This wasn’t meant as a criticism of OP’s question. I was just trying to make sure they were aware of all the niche programming languages out there, especially the ones that use some rather exotic character sets.