What should be added to C

[Rob McMahon]

In article <450 at cad.BERKELEY.EDU> faustus at cad.UUCP writes:
>In article <1497 at mmintl.UUCP>, franka at mmintl.UUCP writes:
>
> > Confusing "=" and "==" in if statements is a common mistake.  If "=" is not
> > a legal operator, this error becomes very rare.
>
>It's also an extra character to type...
>

Are you suggesting we all use single character variable names, or maybe
{letter}{digit} when we need more than 26 ?  I think phasing in ":=" over a
number of years is an excellent idea, first providing a switch to turn on
warnings about "=", then always warning, then maybe giving errors.  The
trouble is "if (a = f())" is just too useful, if you could write
"if (a := f())" it becomes readable too (".. a becomes equal to ..." instead
of "... a equals ...").
-- 
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Rob McMahon, Computer Unit, Warwick University, Coventry CV4 7AL, England