3 ms·

From the article: > Looking at this as a whole, = was never “the natural choice” the assignment operator. Pretty much everybody used := for assignment instead,

From the article: > Looking at this as a whole, = was never “the natural choice” the assignment operator. Pretty much everybody used := for assignment instead, possibly because = was so associated with equality. Nowadays most languages use = entirely because C uses it, and we can trace C using it to CPL being such a clusterfuck.

AnimalMuppet 9y ago
And I dispute the "pretty much everybody used" part. In fact, I think the article contradicts that opinion. Algol used it, and so did Pascal. But Pascal was only a year old [Edit: at the time the choice was made for C] - it [Pascal] hadn't set the world on fire yet (to the degree that ever did). That leaves Algol using ":=", and FORTRAN, COBOL, and Lisp not using it. That's not "pretty much everybody used".
- hwayne 9y ago
  Yeah, it's probably more accurate to say that "everybody from the Algol line used := for assignment", with C being the first language of that line to stop.
kps 9y ago
> From the article: Articles, like desserts, aren't always right. I am sorely tempted to pull out Sammet's book tonight and start counting.
- kps 9y ago
  Too late to edit, but I've gone and done it: scanned through Sammet's Programming Languages: History and Fundamentals for languages with identifiable assignment statements. I skip assembly-style, English-like (COBOL etc.), and functional-style (LISP etc.) syntax, and for summary purposes ignore accompanying keywords like BASIC's LET. Results: ν = ε 18 (AMTRAN, BASIC, COLASL, CPS, FORTRAN, FORTRANSIT, JOSS, JOVIAL, Klerer-May, Laning & Zierler, MAD, MADCAP, MAP, MATH-MATIC, MIRFAC, PL/I, QUICKTRAN, UNICODE) ν ← ε 4 (APL, DIALOG, IT, LISP2) ε → ν 2 (MADCAP, NELIAC) ν := ε 1 (ALGOL) ε * ν 1 (BACIAC) So pretty much everybody used ‘=’. ALGOL was an outlier, though admittedly more influential than BACIAC.
  - deleted 9y ago
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AnimalMuppet 9y ago

And I dispute the "pretty much everybody used" part. In fact, I think the article contradicts that opinion. Algol used it, and so did Pascal. But Pascal was only a year old [Edit: at the time the choice was made for C] - it [Pascal] hadn't set the world on fire yet (to the degree that ever did). That leaves Algol using ":=", and FORTRAN, COBOL, and Lisp not using it. That's not "pretty much everybody used".

hwayne 9y ago
Yeah, it's probably more accurate to say that "everybody from the Algol line used := for assignment", with C being the first language of that line to stop.

kps 9y ago

> From the article: Articles, like desserts, aren't always right. I am sorely tempted to pull out Sammet's book tonight and start counting.

kps 9y ago
Too late to edit, but I've gone and done it: scanned through Sammet's Programming Languages: History and Fundamentals for languages with identifiable assignment statements. I skip assembly-style, English-like (COBOL etc.), and functional-style (LISP etc.) syntax, and for summary purposes ignore accompanying keywords like BASIC's LET. Results: ν = ε 18 (AMTRAN, BASIC, COLASL, CPS, FORTRAN, FORTRANSIT, JOSS, JOVIAL, Klerer-May, Laning & Zierler, MAD, MADCAP, MAP, MATH-MATIC, MIRFAC, PL/I, QUICKTRAN, UNICODE) ν ← ε 4 (APL, DIALOG, IT, LISP2) ε → ν 2 (MADCAP, NELIAC) ν := ε 1 (ALGOL) ε * ν 1 (BACIAC) So pretty much everybody used ‘=’. ALGOL was an outlier, though admittedly more influential than BACIAC.
- deleted 9y ago
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