On Sunday, June 26, 2016 at 6:51:58 PM UTC+5:30, Steven D'Aprano wrote: > On Sun, 26 Jun 2016 08:48 pm, BartC wrote: > > > On 26/06/2016 08:36, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote: > >> One of Python’s few mistakes was that it copied the C convention of using > >> “=” for assignment and “==” for equality comparison. > > > > One of C's many mistakes. Unfortunately C has been very influential. > > > > However, why couldn't Python have used "=" both for assignment, and for > > equality? Since I understand assignment ops can't appear in expressions. > > Personally, I think that even if there is no *syntactical* ambiguity between > assignment and equality, programming languages should still use different > operators for them. I must admit that my first love is still Pascal's := > for assignment and = for equality, but C's = for assignment and == for > equality it *almost* as good. > > (It loses a mark because absolute beginners confuse the assignment = for the > = in mathematics, which is just different enough to cause confusion.) > > But the BASIC style = for both assignment and equality is just begging for > confusion. Even though = is not ambiguous given BASIC's rules, it can still > be ambiguous to beginners who haven't yet digested those rules and made > them second nature. > > And even experts don't always work with complete statements. Here is a > snippet of BASIC code: > > X = Y > > Is it an assignment or an equality comparison? Without seeing the context, > it is impossible to tell: > > 10 X = Y + 1 > 20 IF X = Y GOTO 50 > > > Now obviously BASIC was a very popular and successful language, for many > years, despite that flaw. But I wouldn't repeat it in a new language.
This is a tad bit unfair (I think) Initially Basic (BASIC as things were spelt then) used LET X = Y for the assignment The general success of the succinct and confusing approach starting Fortran and exploding with C I guess prompted the shortening [My impression: Dont know the history exactly] -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
