Precedent for use of =

[Col. G. L. Sicherman]

> >As long as you're writing in C, and you REALLY know the language, the above
> >construct would be ridiculous.  I think that most of the folks that are
> >unhappy with the way that C handles = and == are frustrated Pascal hackers
> >who can't quite adjust to the power and terseness of C.
> 
> Unfortunately, it's that kind of attitude that leads to the perpetuation of
> bad language constructs.

Let's keep the blame where it belongs: in letting assignments be expressions.
FORTRAN uses `=' for assignment, and nobody ever complained except an
occasional mathematician who couldn't understand "I=I+1".  = was obviously
appropriate, safe, and convenient for a "FORmula TRANslation" language.

Personally, I like Modula-2's `#' for .NE. ... but it takes getting used to!
-- 
Col. G. L. Sicherman
UU: ...{rocksvax|decvax}!sunybcs!colonel
CS: colonel at buffalo-cs
BI: csdsicher at sunyabva