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From: faustus@ucbcad.BERKELEY.EDU (Wayne A. Christopher)
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re: PRECEDENT FOR USE OF =
Message-ID: <761@ucbcad.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Mon, 30-Jun-86 16:05:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbcad.761
Posted: Mon Jun 30 16:05:08 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 1-Jul-86 03:58:39 EDT
References: <1645@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Organization: CAD Group, U.C. Berkeley
Lines: 18

In article <1645@brl-smoke.ARPA>, JUNG_E%SITVXA.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU writes:
> Why can't C be like everybody else?  Practically every language uses
> the equals sign, "=", to test for equality, not as an assignment operator.

This is a useless argument, since it won't change anything... However,
I can't agree that K&R were mistaken -- just because all other
languages use = differently, that doesn't mean that they had to.  I
think their argument in favor of = and == is a good onew, certainly
better than "Pascal uses := for assignment".  If I use C 90% of the time
and other languages 10% of the time, I think it makes more sense to ask
"Why can't the other languages be like C..."

> If they had my brains, they would have used Pascal's method.

The fact that Pascal uses := is an argument against it, since Pascal is
simply *ugly*...

	Wayne