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From: tainter@ihlpg.UUCP (Tainter)
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re: PRECEDENT FOR USE OF =
Message-ID: <2157@ihlpg.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 8-Jul-86 13:52:20 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihlpg.2157
Posted: Tue Jul  8 13:52:20 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 10-Jul-86 01:35:23 EDT
References: <1645@brl-smoke.ARPA> <1986Jun30.203536.6984@utcs.uucp>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 26

> 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.
> >...
> >              Kernighan and Ritchie, in their infinite wisdom, decide
> >instead to use "=" for assignments and to create a new operator, "==" to
> >test for equality.
> Not only that, they changed "begin" and "end" to { and }, changed "writeln"
> to puts, and all sorts of awful things!  They made it into a WHOLE NEW
> LANGUAGE!!!!!
And ignored rationality for a cutesy orthoganal operator construct which they
screwed up anyway.

<< should be less than, >> greater than, == equal, >= greater or equal,
<= less or equal, <>  (or >< ) greater than or less than

The problems C has are mostly in human readability.  Of which, the most glaring
is the use of = as assignment and == as comparison.

NOTE: I don't recall Algol having a writeln so I don't why you say they
    changed it to puts. :-)

    Yes, I know he was claiming comparison to Pascal as reason for objection
    to C.  Pascal has a writeln but it is much more like printf than prints.

--j.a.tainter