Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!pyrdc!gmu90x!dana
From: dana@gmu90x.UUCP (J Dana Eckart)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: colon-equal vs equal
Message-ID: <1629@gmu90x.UUCP>
Date: 24 Dec 88 15:58:53 GMT
References: <3300001@uxg.cso.uiuc.edu> <3290002@hpctdls.HP.COM>
Reply-To: dana@gmu90x.UUCP (J Dana Eckart)
Organization: George Mason University
Lines: 23

In article <3290002@hpctdls.HP.COM> rbk@hpctdls.HP.COM (Richard Katz) writes:
>>/ hpctdls:comp.lang.misc / phil@uxg.cso.uiuc.edu /  2:36 pm  Dec 20, 1988 /
>
>>How did the := come into being in languages like Algol, Pascal, and Ada?
>
>I don't know how the := came into being, but I don't have any beef
>about it.  In fact, I think Pascal use of it is good.  Pascal uses =
>as a boolean operator and := as asignment.

Why not think of the ":=" versus "=" question as a choice of whether
or not to support operator overloading in the language.  The "=" for 
assignment is a procedure, while the boolean operator is a function.

Whether or not you like operator overloading, I think that the ":="
versus "=" question is reducible to another more basic question and
should be discussed in that light.

Of course, everything in this posting could be wrong.

J Dana Eckart         UUCP: ...!(gatech | pyrdc)!gmu90x!dana
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