this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2026
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Programmer Humor

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submitted 1 month ago by skepller@lemmy.world to c/programmer_humor@programming.dev
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[–] 404@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

For programming languages that make use of {}, the reason is (almost always) scope.

Take for instance this:

for i in 0..10
do_thing();
do_other_thing();

compared to this:

for i in 0..10 {
    do_thing();
}
do_other_thing();

The intent of the first one is unclear. In the second one it's clear you should loop do_thing() and then run do_other_thing() afterwards. The indentation is only for readability in the above though. Logically there would be no difference in writing

for i in 0..10 { do_thing(); } do_other_thing();

Languages that use indentation and line breaks for scope look more similar to this:

for i in 0..10:
    do_thing()
do_other_thing()