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From: geoff@suneast.uucp (Geoff Arnold)
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: re: '=' vs '<-' vs '.ne' vs '==' vs ':=' vs '.eq.' vs ...
Message-ID: <175@suneast.uucp>
Date: Wed, 9-Jul-86 08:12:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: suneast.175
Posted: Wed Jul  9 08:12:53 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 11-Jul-86 07:23:30 EDT
References: <5282@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU>
Organization: Sun Microsystems Inc. - East Coast Division
Lines: 42

>>Path: ..!topaz!gaynor (Silver @ Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.)
>>
>>I give my preferences, and why.
>>
>>ASSIGNMENT  <-
>>
>>It visually seems more consistent with the programming paradigm, 'move
>>this value there'.  

Well, to my mind the only language that ever got it RIGHT was POP-2:

	Rvalue -> Lvalue

(yeah, I know that using Rvalue and Lvalue in this context is bizarre...).
It seems more consistent with the sequential nature of the language
(sorry - English chauvinism strikes again).  Using the usual

	Lvalue <assignment_op> Rvalue

form always looks as though we're a bit ashamed of the fact that these
languages are procedural... After all, the first time most kids get to
write textual material of the form

	SOMETHING = SOMETHING_ELSE
	...

is in elementary algebra (that is, until they started teaching Basic
two grades earlier than algebra... [sigh]), in which the "=" sign is
perceived as having both logical (axiomatic) and textual (macro
definition) uses. (This from talking to average kids who have been
through a year of algebra.)

Not that I'm advocating the POP-2 untyped stack model, in which
Forth-like swapping was really easy

	A, B ->A ->B

Take THAT, `lint'! :-)

-- 
"disclaimo, disclaimas, disclaimat, disclaimamus, disclaimatis, disclamant"
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