My main reason for considering not using empty parens (beyond doing it for built-ins), is I never thought about it before. I've always loved Perl, but because there's enough noise, if I could reduce some, I would (it took several years before I came up with a 'standard'). Before Perl, I didn't have much devel experience less some at-home C++ Windows fun I was having when I bought (yep, bought) Borland C++ Builder, and a book to learn from.

That doesn't count though. Perl is where I learned how to program, now I can understand (in some cases at a basic level) several languages. I'm very proficient in Perl and Python, I believe I'm starting to understand C to the point I can compile relatively reasonable complex code and know when the compiler will barf, and I can finagle and mingle with C# and some C++, and can just get by in JS/JQuery.

My objective, thanks to what Your Mother said, is now relevant across all languages I frequent, which I didn't think of when I wrote my OP. Now, with the way that things are explained here (in your reply) and other parts of this thread, I may need to step back, consider everything outlined in this thread, and consider the ramifications in all langs, *then* come up with a favoured method.

Funny how such a simple question could have such far-reaching potential ramifications.