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From: dennison@telepath.com (Ted Dennison)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: status of Ada STL?
Date: 17 Jun 2002 08:53:45 -0700
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18k11tm001@sneakemail.com (Russ) wrote in message news:<bebbba07.0206162248.45b6174e@posting.google.com>...
> Certainly "=" is better than ":=" for assignment, but if you don't

In what way?

Logically, its not better. The symbol comes from math, where it
designates an invariant equality of values, not a moving of values
from one temporary storage place to another. Using it for assigning
just confuses newbies who know algebra. For instance this series of
statements is impossible in algebra, but common in programs:

A = 3
B = 7
...
A = B

This isn't just theory, I've seen it confuse quite a lot of people who
are new to programming.

"=" also had the drawback that is it confusingly similar to the
operator people want to use for true equality (becuase that is what it
*should* be used for, being the most analagous to the mathematical
symbol it comes from).

So what are the advatages that counterbalance these disadvanteges
enough to make it "certianly better"? I've yet to see you name one.