From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,3b9cb18e1220c16c X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-11-06 22:51:02 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!gestalt.direcpc.com!cyclone2.usenetserver.com!c02.atl3!news.webusenet.com!news02.tsnz.net!newsfeed01.tsnz.net!news.xtra.co.nz!news.mel.connect.com.au!not-for-mail From: "Matthew Baulch" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Where did /= come from? Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2002 17:50:37 +1100 Organization: Customer of Connect.com.au Pty. Ltd. Message-ID: References: <3DC93F8B.9E28FD15@mmm.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 210.11.36.221 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 X-Trace: perki.connect.com.au 1036651861 7646 210.11.36.221 (7 Nov 2002 06:51:01 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@connect.com.au NNTP-Posting-Date: 7 Nov 2002 06:51:01 GMT User-Agent: Pan/0.13.0 (The whole remains beautiful) Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:30507 Date: 2002-11-07T06:51:01+00:00 List-Id: On Wed, 06 Nov 2002 10:12:59 +0000, Programmer Dude wrote: > I'm learning Ada (installed GNAT and AdaGIDE last week, wrote Hello, World). > > I was somewhat bemused to stumble on Ada's version of "not equals": /= > > I'm curious about its derivation or the reason behind the lexography. > (Perhaps a desire to use common keyboard characters?) I'm not advocating C when I say this, but != makes far more sense than /= lexically speaking. In C, the Negative of a bool is retrieved with !foo. In Ada, not foo. So I believe that K&R got it right using the != operator for 'not equal'. Ada on the other hand doesn't use the ! operator and "not equal" is too clumsy so it could be far worse than '/='.