Why does a programming language need keywords?

Question

For example (in C):

int break = 1;
int for = 2;

Why will the compiler have any problems at all in deducing that break and for are variables here?

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So, we need keywords because

• we want the programs to be readable
• we do not want to over-complicate the job of already complex compilers of today
• but most importantly, a language is lot more powerful if some 'key'words are reserved for some special actions. Then, the language can think of being useful at a higher level rather than dying in trying to implement a for loop in an unambiguous way.

Answer 1

FWIW, Tcl doesn't have any reserved words. You can have variables and functions named "if", "break", etc. The interpretation of a token is totally dependent on the context. The same token can represent a command in one context, a variable in another, or a literal string in another.