[664] in Coldmud discussion meeting

Let's re-open the assignments as expressions debate

daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Tue Mar 7 09:03:20 1995 )

From: crag@serial.MIT.EDU (Robert de Forest )
To: coldstuff@MIT.EDU
Date: Tue, 7 Mar 1995 07:55:30 -0600 (CST)

Some time ago the question of whether there should be an assignment expression
 or not was raised and never quite answered to anyone's satisfaction. I wish to
 reopen the debate having modified a version of the server to make x=y an
 expression.

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.

I decided to try it out because it makes certain familar code structures
 much simpler, particularly:

if (test1=.test1()) {
  .use(test1);
} else if (test2=.test2()) {
  .use(test2);
} else {
}

as well as

while (test = .test())
  .use(test);

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?

Crag