[680] in Coldmud discussion meeting

Re: assignment operator

daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Thu Mar 9 14:34:19 1995 )

From: brandon@avon.declab.usu.edu
To: coldstuff@MIT.EDU
Date: Thu, 09 Mar 95 12:26:17 -0700

< Personally, I'd prefer :=..  It's already used in at least one language for
< this purpose

VMS's DCL (Digital Command Language, aka VMS shell) uses ':==' to set symbols
(i.e. make an assignment, of sorts).

< I don't particularly like <- mainly because it doesn't have an = in it (as I
< mentioned above), and because it doesn't much look like an expression either
< (it looks like a statement.. tho I suppose any assignment will conceptually
< seem more like a statement, even if it isn't, but at least '='-based things
< have a history of expressionism(?) to back them up..)

Well, I'm torn here.  I actually like how '<-' looks, it grows on you
aesthetically, but it DOES get to be somewhat confusing with '->'...
(especially if I use '->' to access global methods).

From all of the arguments put forward, I think we could say it is a tossup
between '<-' and ':='.  The pros/cons I can think of are (feel free to add/
change this list):

Assignment operator as '<-':
PROS:
  * Looks correct (i.e. right is assigned/pointed into left)
  * some think it looks "cool" or is aesthetically pleasing
CONS:
  * Looks too much like '->' in C, which has a totally different meaning.
  * Looks too much like '->', which may be used to point to global methods
    (versus '.' which would be used to point to local methods)

Assignment operator as ':=':
PROS:
  * It has been used before in a few languages (including Pascal and DCL)
  * It includes an equals sign, but is a two character sequence per all
    other operators including an equals sign.
CONS:
  ?

< Mind you, I'm not particularly sad to see it go, tho there
< are some others who shall remain nameless which I'd rather see bite it..
                  ^^^

Ack, you can tell when you have been programming too long when you start
referring to programming languages as entities/people rather than objects 8)

-Brandon