Questions about parentheses, brackets

[cyrille de brébisson]

Hello,

Interestingly, in France, we have neither {} nor [] in our traditional character set.

() are called 'parentheses' and are used in the same way as in English.

<< >> are 'accolades' (note that although I wrote them here using the > and < symbols, the double forms are characters on their own, separate from the < and > symbols)

< and > are only used for math with the usual meaning.
Curly braces are sometimes used, but only in the opening form, either on the left, or on the top or bottom to englobe a set. Like for the peicewise template, or for repeating items (like when you try to explain multiplication, which is an addition that repeats n times)...

If you ever purchase a french keyboard, you will see that the {} and [] are truly addition, 3rd characters on keys using a special shift.
If you purchase a mac keyboard, they simply are not there!!!! Basically, you can not program on a French mac keyboard!

Cheers,
Cyrille