karl@haddock.ISC.COM (Karl Heuer) (01/20/88)
In article <214@oink.UUCP> jep@oink.UUCP (James E. Prior) writes: >I find := for assignment to be quite obnoxious. ... misleading ... >In math : is often used for comparison, as in ratios. > >Cyber folklore around the office has it that := originated in Europe >as something that looked similar to [left arrow]. If they wanted to preserve the appearance, I would expect that "<-" or "<=" would have been a better choice. I've always believed that the ":=" (in ALGOL and its successors) was taken directly from the identical mathematical symbol. Since you find it "misleading", I presume you've never seen the mathematical usage of ":="? Karl W. Z. Heuer (ima!haddock!karl or karl@haddock.isc.com), The Walking Lint (Followups to comp.lang.misc; this is not C-related anymore.)