4 ms·
The length of symbols should roughly be negatively correlated with its frequency. Since in procedural language, assignment is a much more common operation than
by abakus 9y ago
The length of symbols should roughly be negatively correlated with its frequency.
Since in procedural language, assignment is a much more common operation than equality check, it is reasonable to favor "=" over ":=" or even "<-".
- pbhjpbhj 9y agoSo you have a key with the assignment operator on.
- jfoutz 9y agoalso, there's no hand balance on either of the composite symbols. := is my right pinky, <- is different fingers, but bottom and top row. neither exactly flows from the fingertips.
- neaden 9y agoI don't think that is a big issue. Just bind it to something else. In RStudio by default <- is bound to alt and -.
- abakus 9y agoBut that is still 2 keystrokes. That is why in R they came to the compromise to use both <- and =.
- ryanmonroe 9y agoWell, it also adds a space before and after so you're saving one keystroke vs space = space
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- roselan 9y agoWhat does prevent : to become the assignment operator of a language? It's short, and quite "explicit". x: 2
- bwbw223 9y agoShift key?
- Izkata 9y agoThe Rebol family of languages works like that.
- 9214 9y agoExcept that it doesn't. ":" in "x:" is not an assignment operator and "x" is not a variable.
- Izkata 9y agoYes yes, it's a set-word! type in the "do" dialect. That's not how it's learned when first starting, though, and not usually the thing you're thinking about when using it moment-to-moment.
- mpweiher 9y agoSelf and Newspeak sort of do it this way, adding implicit self to Smalltalk's keyword syntax and accessor convention. These 'accessors' also work on local variables, there is no special syntax for assignment. So when you write x it means send the message x, which starts its lookup in the local environment and works itself outwards. When you write x:2 it sends the message x: with argument 2, also starting in the local environment. The accessors are automatically generated in pairs for slots. It sorta works, but it seems a bit too convoluted just to say "hey, we can do everything with just messaging".
- gowld 9y agoa byte of RAM or disk is cheaper than a human neuron. Brains are more important than fingers.
- nielsbot 9y agoWell, I suppose one could add a `⟵` key to the keyboard... :-P