I just find it easier to see the words BEGIN and END than the often rather pale braces, since I'm pretty old, and getting older every day. I think spelling out the punctuation/delimiters would probably make it more difficult to read. Spelling out certain things doesn't make it difficult to read. It does make it more work to type. I would hope the energy saved on tying 'C' goes into typing more thoughtful comments rather than playing a game.



Gee ... they hadn't even invented 'C' when I went off to college.

I have to agree that some of the verbosity can seem superfluous, but they make it clear what's going on, and when you're learning, that doesn't hurt a thing. If 'C' used something like "preincrement" or "postincrement", perhaps as an alias, rather than ++n or n++ students, and old-timers with failing eyesight, would have an easier time.

Now, many of them would have to learn to type a bit faster, but that need's not uncommon even among competent professionals. It becomes second nature. I remember back in the early keypunch days, right after we stopped chiseling our code into stone, I could type <FORMAT> fast enough that the card punch would occasionally miss one of the keystrokes. That, of course, was because we used FORTRAN back then and you had to tell it how to interpet/display your data.

RE