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From: bruce@seismo.gps.caltech.edu (Bruce Worden)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Assignment in test: OK?
Message-ID: <1990Sep17.220836.11501@laguna.ccsf.caltech.edu>
Date: 17 Sep 90 22:08:36 GMT
References: <1990Sep12.194753.9808@laguna.ccsf.caltech.edu> <3749@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au> <1990Sep13.230805.19720@laguna.ccsf.caltech.edu> <14316:Sep1511:00:2390@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>
Sender: bruce@seismo.gps.caltech.edu (Bruce Worden)
Organization: California Institute of Technology, CA
Lines: 22

In article <14316:Sep1511:00:2390@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) writes:

> [ material deleted ]
>Bruce, am I right in thinking that =/:=/== would satisfy you?

Well, not really, though it is an interesting idea.  I think that it might 
just add to the confusion that some people already seem to be experiencing 
on this issue.  On that note, I was assuming that people writing `if(x = y)' 
and meaning `if(x == y)' were just making some mechanical error.  It has 
been brought to my attention, however, that the problem may be caused by a 
confusion of the `=' symbol in C with that of some other language, by 
someone who regularly programs in multiple languages.  In such a case the 
bug would be much harder to find.  While I could take a hard line and say 
that anyone programming in C should know what the operators are, I will ask 
a question instead: For those of you who regularly program in several 
languages, how big a problem is this, and would changing `=' to `:=' really 
fix it?  If it turns out to be a significant problem, maybe it could be 
changed.  I think there is a newsgroup `cfutures' that could discuss the 
change.  Mr. Bernstein's suggestion could be considered as well. 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
C. Bruce Worden                            bruce@seismo.gps.caltech.edu
252-21 Seismological Laboratory, Caltech, Pasadena, CA 91125