On Monday, June 1, 2015 at 9:40:39 PM UTC+5:30, Chris Angelico wrote: > On Tue, Jun 2, 2015 at 1:17 AM, BartC wrote: > > On 01/06/2015 14:52, Chris Angelico wrote: > >> It's > >> > >> like the eternal debate about assignment and whether "x = x + 1" is > >> nonsense, with advocates preferring "x := x + 1" as being somehow > >> fundamentally different. It isn't. It's just a notational change, and > >> not even a huge one. (Though I do see the line of argument that it > >> should be "x <- x + 1" or something else that looks like an arro'w.) > > > > > > 'x <- x + 1' already means something as an expression (whether x is less > > than (-x+1). 'x <= x + 1' has the same problem. > > > > But I have used "=>" before, for left-to-right assignment. (Mostly I use > > ":=") > > In Python it does, yes; I'm talking about the language design > advocates. Some recommend a two-character ASCII notation like "<-" or > "<=", others prefer a single-character symbol eg "←" or "⇦", but > whatever it is, it will have no meaning in that language other than > assignment. And yes, I can see the value of using an arrow to indicate > assignment... but I don't really see a huge problem with using "=" to > mean assignment, given that people from a mathematical background will > have to grok the entire concept of temporal truth anyway. Whatever > symbol you use, it has to be explained.
Its not merely temporal truth but truth vs action and their wanton overloading. In every (natural) language that I know (of)¹ declarative and imperative moods are distinguished. It does not require a PhD in English to see that "Please sit down." and "It is raining." differ in mood. Imperative languages after Pascal (specially C and following) use a locution from the one to denote a semantics in the other and make pickle of beginners' brains. --------- ¹ Except perhaps magic/mystic-speak wherein pronouncing a spell makes the heavens thunder. Maybe I am just too old to have noticed that imperative programming is a paradigm of magic -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
