[Bluej-discuss] confusion over =

[Michael E. Caspersen]

Dijkstra pronounced the assignment operator "becomes", i.e.

     a= b+c;

reads "a becomes b+c".  I like that; it's simple and clear!

BTW, notice the asymetrical notation; since = is an asymmetrical 
operator, it should be written as such.  This helps parsing the 
statement; it also reinforce that = is not the equality operator.

In a similar way, again due to Dijkstra, I tend to put extra space 
around low priority operators -- again to help the eye (or what's 
behind it) to parse the expression.  E.g.

     a + b*c

It took mankind more than 150 years to agree upon = as the sign for 
equality (it was only much later that it was concieved as a boolean 
operator).  Kernighan & Ritchie did a lot of harm when they 
"designed" the syntax of C.

Best regards,
Michael