<HEAD><TITLE>discuss@charon: [707] in "Coldmud discussion meeting"</TITLE>
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<HR><H2>assignment clarification</H2>
<H3>daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sun Mar 12 23:04:55 1995
)</H3>
<PRE>
From: crag@serial.MIT.EDU (Robert de Forest )
To: coldstuff@MIT.EDU
Date: Sun, 12 Mar 1995 21:58:30 -0600 (CST)

Someone pointed out a possible misunderstanding in the assignment expression
 debate. He said some people might think I was proposing a new operator in
 addition to '=' to act as an assignment expression so that the following
 would be true:

a = b; // Valid
a &lt;- b; // Valid
(a = b) || 1; // Invalid, '=' is not an expression

As it turns out, what I propose is to replace '=' with '&lt;-' or something like
 it, as well as to make it an expression.

I think many readers were aware of what I was proposing but best to explain. I
 believe I mentioned that I have already made the change. I have a working
 server running at sensemedia.net:6666 for those who wish to see what such
 a beast would feel like, or who don't believe it's possible or whatever. In
 this version the operator is '='.

Having said the above it seems we now have at four questions.

Should there be an assignment statement? (no, an assignment expression 
 is sufficient since expr; is a statement).

If there is an assignemnt statement what should it be? (=, :=, but I still
 still don't want one.)

Should there be an assignment expression? (yes, if you don't want one write
 lint--).

What should the assignment expression operator be? ('&lt;-')

Thank you, drive thru.
Crag 'Beavis' de Forest
</PRE>
