Re: C like op= proposal

[Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com>]

On Wed, 18 Aug 1999, Robert Dewar wrote:
> In article <m3u2pyutzu.fsf@fred.muc.de>,
>   Andi Kleen <ak-uu@muc.de> wrote:
> > [1] To attribute correctly this is an old argument from, I
> believe
> > Dennis Ritchie, in a prehistoric article about C. I think he's
> right.
> 
> 
> No, this is older than C, these notations were around in
> Algol variants (as +:=) before C existed. Note that Algol-68
> has these operators.
> 
> But there are many other factors in the Ada decision. Please
> go look up old threads, I don't feel like going over this stuff
> again myself :-)

Yes, but Algol-68 didn't have a pseudo-variable for representing the left
hand side, and I haven't seen this approach discussed here. If it was, 
please give a pointer of some kind to the thread. 

Also note that a request for opinions doesn't constitute a suggestion for
a language change. I prefer [] for arrays too, but there's no way I'd
suggest that change! I was curious about whether other Ada users would 
find some notation like this *more readable*. I doubt that adding
syntactic gadgetry like this at this stage in Ada's life is worth the 
effort. Ada's progeny are a different story.

-- Brian