[705] in Coldmud discussion meeting

Re: assignment operator

daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sat Mar 11 19:37:16 1995 )

From: The Importance of Being Chuck <cadams@weather.Brockport.EDU>
To: jeffpk@netcom.com (Jeff Kesselman)
Date: Sat, 11 Mar 1995 19:34:40 -0500 (EST)
Cc: coldstuff@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <199503110454.UAA23074@netcom20.netcom.com> from "Jeff Kesselman" at Mar 10, 95 08:54:07 pm

Jeff Kesselman drew these heiroglyphs:
> >Your whining about "but it's not like C"
> >is really one of the most insignificant aspects of this whole issue I can think
> >of.  It was NEVER exactly like C, and it's not supposed to be!  Changing this
> >one operator won't suddenly make people go "oh, I could handle all the other
> >changes, but I just can't learn this language if assignment isn't '='"..
> >sheesh.
> 
> Youa re taking this MUCH too personally and obviously were scared by an
> assignment operator at a young age.
> 
> Actually your mention of the fact that you never learned to avoid this C
> pitfall in your earlier post explains a great deal.  MOST competant C
> programmers make this mistake twice and never again.  I consider your
> "whining about how it was a bad K&R decision" the msot irrelevent thing in
> ths dicussion.  One mans logic is another mans whining irrelevancy.  You'ld
> do well to grow up and learn that if you EVER plan to do ANY programmign in
> a competant group environment.
> (In case you're wondreing I've been programming professionally, both singly
> and in groups, for about 10 years now.)

WOO, religious flamewar! :) Actually, I make this mistake all the
time.  I can also live with it.  Especially since many compilers have
a 'possibly unintended assignment' warning that saves my ass.
Warnings can be done in-db, and turned off by experienced programmers
who don't want to be bothered by them.

The point: warnings are good.  write a db that generates them.