On Wednesday, August 10, 2016 at 9:31:40 PM UTC+5:30, Anders J. Munch wrote: > Lawrence D’Oliveiro: > >> [...] as much like C++ as > >> possible. > > > > Nevertheless, Python copied the C misfeature [...] > > You segued a little too easily from C++ to C. When talking language > evolution and inspirations, they are entirely different things.
Talking of too-easy-segueing: Python’s inspiration and origin is ABC Whose assignment looked like PUT expr INTO var This has the salutary effect - Of being l-to-r (the only other such case I know is gas mov) - And of course of not making a misleading pun between equality and assignment Of course from a software engineering pov, writing say a 1000 line program with > 500 assignments written with PUT…INTO is of course ridiculous But from a pedagogy pov here is a recent post (set) by a beginner that shows how much this pun costs in beginner confusion: https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2016-June/710595.html https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2016-June/710668.html And for completeness (since there seems to be the notion that C and like are the only natural ones around) here are some extant alternatives: Pascal (and Algol family generally) var := exp Early Basic LET var = exp ABC PUT exp INTO var Lisp(scheme) (setq var exp) (set! var exp) Assembly mov var, exp (gas) mov exp, var APL var ← exp -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
