Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att-cb!att-ih!pacbell!ames!ucsd!sdcsvax!ucsdhub!esosun!seismo!uunet!steinmetz!davidsen
From: davidsen@steinmetz.steinmetz.ge.com (William E. Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: == vs =
Message-ID: <10205@steinmetz.steinmetz.ge.com>
Date: 1 Apr 88 18:13:35 GMT
References: <11216@brl-adm.ARPA> <2111@chinet.UUCP> <4403@garfield.UUCP> <931@micomvax.UUCP> <1011@mcgill-vision.UUCP> <956@micomvax.UUCP> <1390@eneevax.UUCP> <2794@mmintl.UUCP>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Organization: General Electric CRD, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 18

In the early 70's I designed a language based on B, called IMP. It ran
on the Intel 8080 and GE 600 series, and cross compiled (in both
directions). After talking to a number of people about the readability
of the code, three changes were made in the language:
	= was replaced by := to avoid confusion
	== was replaced by = since assignment was different
	!= was replaced with <> like BASIC

I find it interesting that 15 years later = and == are still biting (or
byting) people and we are still living with it. Perhaps in the next (P)
language this will change.

Disclamer: this is historical fact, not opinion. I have no opinions from
April 1st to Memorial Day.
-- 
	bill davidsen		(wedu@ge-crd.arpa)
  {uunet | philabs | seismo}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me