I have never, in 20 years of programming, ever made this mistake Good for you! But fortunately you put the braces in anyway, because the person who touches th

I have never, in 20 years of programming, ever made this mistake Good for you! But fortunately you put the braces in anyway, because the person who touches the code after you might be more prone to the mistake. I almost never misspell things. I might therefore be tempted to believe that spell checkers are a pointless and annoying waste of time. But not everyone has the same brain as I, and experience has taught me that there are lots of people who can't spell well, many of whom are actually really good writers. I'd assume that the optional-braces problem is a cliche for a similar reason.