> The symbol parsing part of the human brain is what parses letters and numbers, as well as other abstract symbols. I really don't think that's true when you t

> The symbol parsing part of the human brain is what parses letters and numbers, as well as other abstract symbols. I really don't think that's true when you talk about about someone using the latin alphabet, words in that alphabet compared to some other alphabet (e.g. {}():!) and "words" (or meanings) in those. Just as a crude example parsing "c = a - b", where equals and minus are one symbol each and have been taught for a while, is different from parsing "c := a << b" where ":=" and "<<" basically act as a separate meaning someone has to learn to understand. Similar to the difference of latin alphabet and say simplified Chinese. > also, if this was the phenomenon in play, popularity would be TOML > YAML > JSON but in reality it's closer to the reverse. There could be somewhat of an sigmoid response to the effect, decreased reaction if you go into either extreme compared to deviating from the average. I'm not a linguist so it is my speculation, so don't take it too seriously :D