How Curly Braces Became Computing's Universal Symbol

This article traces the historical evolution of curly braces from UNIX to C, revealing how a simple syntactic choice became fundamental to programming language design. Understanding this evolution provides insight into why curly braces remain ubiquitous across modern languages and how early design decisions shape decades of developer experience. For programmers and language designers, it demonstrates the lasting impact of foundational syntax decisions on code readability and language adoption.