This is really a problem. I have taught a lot of beginners in a university environment and many of them already have problems with the different C-style bracket

This is really a problem. I have taught a lot of beginners in a university environment and many of them already have problems with the different C-style brackets: ( [ { } ]). Some of them asked me "Where do I find the curly ones?" AFAIK they are not even printed on many Mac keyboards. Just imagine the hell you get into when you're using a caret/circonflexe - a character a lot of people never use at all. Imagine them finally finding the key, hitting it just to find out that in most environments they'll have to hit the space key to make it appear. A teacher's nightmare!