Parenthetical karma

I guess I should explain this post. :-)

You see, I write parenthetically (some people say I talk that way, too). Which would be okay but I tend to forget that I was in parentheses and every once in a while I need to even them out or I risk having everything I write be in the parentheses of prior posts....

I do the same thing. Do you also use nested parentheses? (I do [and use different styles for deeper nesting])

Well, sometimes I nest them. I usually do not use other styles though. :-)

I think you should write an extension to your blogger, like I used to have in my Lisp environment in college. When you type a ], it will just close all your open parens :)

Is there a way to escape them though? Or are they considered auto-escaped when used as a smile?

Have you tried LISP? (Not that it's anything wrong with a little parentheses (not much, at least))

Am I the only one who's bothered by the paren at the end of a smiley (unless the smiley ends a parenthetical remark)? All those extra close-parens without their partners... So sad. Perhaps I should do a (((((((((((((((((((((( parenthetical karma post myself to even them out.

Ah, you can only even out your own parentheses -- so now you are very parenthetical, Eve! :-)

I don't mind the ")"s at the end of smileys... what gets me is when somebody ends a parenthetical statement with a smiley and use the smiley's ")" as the right parenthesis "(like this :-)". It just seems uneven to me. "(this :-))" seems right, and it's also easier to parse.

(I know a woman who often uses smileys in the same way some people use exclamation points. It can get silly.)

Did you go through your blog entries and count unclosed parentheses? If so, did you automate it? If so, did you remember to watch for smileys or quoted parentheses? If so, did you have to remember that smileys may be closing parentheses too?

Okay, I'm done nitpicking about string parsing at the guy who knows more about it than I do. :P

Vorn

I actually did no automation to count, I just did it PM-style and threw a bunch of them in there. :-)

I also hate those dual-use smiley/close parens cases. Same kind of imbalance as I was woried about, except the typist is doing it on purpose?

Yeah. Miffs me no end, I feel like I should ask perpetrators why his/her smiley has no mouth.

"PM-style"?

Vorn

PM-style == "Program Manager style"

:-)

I need this kind of a post, but with "}" instead.

So where's the sponsorship of the post... there must be plenty of less frequently utilised closing bracketing characters in Unicode that would like a chance for some publicity?

This comment sponsored by U+23B4 (⎴) TOP SQUARE BRACKET (to avoid assumptions about bracket orientation).

Generally only the "technical" posts get sponsorship, not the self-indulgent ones like this post was. :-)