<HEAD><TITLE>discuss@charon: [699] in "Coldmud discussion meeting"</TITLE>
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<HR><H2>Re: assignment operator</H2>
<H3>daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Fri Mar 10 23:58:11 1995
)</H3>
<PRE>
Date: Fri, 10 Mar 1995 20:54:29 -0800
To: coldstuff@MIT.EDU
From: jeffpk@netcom.com (Jeff Kesselman)

&gt;&lt; Personally, I'd prefer :=..  It's already used in at least one language for
&gt;&lt; this purpose
&gt;
&gt;VMS's DCL (Digital Command Language, aka VMS shell) uses ':==' to set symbols
&gt;(i.e. make an assignment, of sorts).

LL(2) at least. Ugh. My Pascal/C soul rebels at the notion. :)

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


I actually kin dof like it, but the VERY forst machine i programmed used &lt;-
(a single key) for assignment.  I actually think it looks GOOD as an
expression as long as we are using the right to left assignment protocol
that C use.  Example:

a&lt;-b&lt;-(c&lt;-0)+5;

Anyway, it works for me.


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

I'm still a HEAVY proponent for =, for the following reasons:
        A) The language is called ColdC.  That implies that where possible and
           reasonable it is C like. C++ doesnt change syntactic things that
           already exist in C, it just adds new ones where it adds new
           concepts.
        B) C is the ONLY other language I am aware of where assignment is an
           expression.
        C) C is the only really standard development language and these days
           is the first one any seriosu programmer is taught.

I am POSITIVE the readers of my book will appreciate C similarities. I KNOW
thats part of what sold my editor on the idea.



</PRE>
