Is there a particular reason why you need to use the shift key to type a parenthesis - ( or ) - whereas you do not for a square bracket - [ or ], on a standard QWERTY keyboard? The parenthesis is a much more common symbol in writing (and probably programming, too). Is it some kind of historical thing?
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closed as not constructive by slhck, Nifle, Linker3000, random♦ Nov 16 '11 at 20:53
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It's historical. Typewriters had the parentheses as Shift-9 and Shift-8 for decades before computers. There were no square bracket keys (there also wasn't a key for the number 1 on most keyboards -- use used a lower-case "L"). When computer keyboards were invented, they copied typewriters so as not to require keypunchers to learn a new system. Later, the bracket keys were added. | |||
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