[700] in Coldmud discussion meeting

Re: assignment operator

daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Fri Mar 10 23:58:33 1995 )

Date: Fri, 10 Mar 1995 20:54:57 -0800
To: coldstuff@MIT.EDU
From: jeffpk@netcom.com (Jeff Kesselman)


>-> A solution I haven't seen tried is to use '=' for >both<
>   assignment and comparison, and to keep the contexts in
>   which they are allowed mutually exclusive.  This
>   wouldn't be impractical, I don't think, although Cfolk
>   might dislike the restriction.  I doubt novice hackers
>   would.

The only problem with this is its confusing for competent C programmers who
often write code like this:

if (!fptr=fopen(...))

This, ofcoruse, executes the body if andonly if fopen() returns NULL.

I would advise STRONGLY people consider the following rules of
compatability to keep ColdC useable and acceptable to the largest number of
people:

1) Where a functionality is identical to C, use C syntax.

2) Where a functionality is DIFFERENT from C, use different syntax to flag it.

3) NEVER EVER introduce syntax that can look like valid C syntax but do
something different.

Speaking of which, the switch() statement already breaks (3).  It acts more
liek a pascal/Modula2 CASE statetment.  This IMo shoudl be fixed or the
synatx should be chanegd to reflect that (change t Pascal syntax woudl be
my suggestion.)

JK