Questions about parentheses, brackets

[jte]

On this side of the pond (Canada / U.S.), typically

() = parentheses,
[] = brackets (or, to disambiguate from angle brackets, square brackets),
<> = angle brackets (more properly, poor man's / ASCII angle brackets), and
{} = braces.

Angle brackets are a bit exotic here. (More than a few people are unfamiliar with them and would [try to, at least initially] interpret them as less-than and greater-than symbols, especially the ASCII versions.)