[665] in Coldmud discussion meeting

Re: Let's re-open the assignments as expressions debate

daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Tue Mar 7 14:16:54 1995 )

From: brandon@petersboro.declab.usu.edu
To: coldstuff@MIT.EDU
Date: Tue, 07 Mar 95 12:11:17 -0700

< Greg's postion is that assignment expressions lead to bad style which should
< not be permitted if the language is to be readable and gain acceptance.
<
< Quinn's argument is that the programmer should be given the freedom to choose
< how ugly or unreadable his code is.

Although I agree with Greg, I also agree with Quinn.  But, in my opinion
(after a bit of comparison/thought on the matter) I do not believe that
adding assignments as expressions makes it any less readable.  I.e. I would
be for the change.  However, I _DO_ think that in order for the change
to be implemented, we must change the assignment operator (to anything but
a single equals sign).  THIS is what causes assignments as expressions
to become convulted and confusing, in my opinion...

< Is anyone still interested in Cold? Will ColdX take over Cold's role in the
< world? Is anyone more interested in the old Cold now that it may gain this
< patch? Will Brandon add this to ColdX? Will Colin put this in his server?
< Does anyone care about Cold at all anymore?

Go ahead and send me the patch, I'm still learning bits and pieces of yacc,
but I can put it in the next release (once it is decided what operator to
use...). (BTW, anybody know of a standard way to "turn on" verbose errors
with yacc, other than #define'ing YYERROR_VERBOSE? (as this doesn't seem to
be the right way--I need to get that damn yacc book)).

-Brandon (Lynx)-