APL\360

[Fred Cisin]

>> Without OTHER changes in parsing arithmetic expressions, that may or may 
>> not be warranted, just replacing the '=' being used for assignment with an 
>> arrow ELIMINATED that particular confusion.  Well, mostly.  You can't use 
>> a right pointing arrow to fix 3 = X

On Fri, 29 Jan 2021, ben via cctalk wrote:
> Blame K&R with C with the '=' and '==' mess because assignment is a 
> operation. I never hear that C or PASCAL have problems.

I think that it was Ritchie and Thompson who created C;
Kernighan and Ritchie documented it.

'=' and '==' makes possible what is probably the most common error, and 
which the compiler doesn't catch:
if (x = 3) . . .   /* sets x to 3 and gives TRUE for the condition */
I imagine that there are probably some pre-processors that would return a 
WARNING for it.

> I find the pseudo code often less confusing than real languages.
> the one I like best uses indentation for structure.
> while k do
> .if foo then
> ..do this thing
> ..do that thing
> .else
> ..something here
> .!end if
> ! end while
You COULD design a language around your favorite pseudo-code structures.


I like indentation, and demanded it from my students.
while (k)
{   if (foo)
     {  ..do this thing
        ..do that thing
     }
     else
     {  ..something here
     }
}

Even K and R did not agree on indentation styles.


--
Grumpy Ol' Fred     		cisin at xenosoft.com