Though it's true that compilers usually turn assignments into SSA, that's not really the same as what parent was referring to. Static single assignment has the

Though it's true that compilers usually turn assignments into SSA, that's not really the same as what parent was referring to. Static single assignment has the same semantics as normal C-style assignments. The parent was referring to assignments that have (Erlang's) pattern match semantics. Also, there's a simple counterexample. You can have static single assignment that has dynamic multiple assignment (e.g. within a loop construct). Under the pattern-matching semantics, evaluating the assignment (or rather the pattern match) a second time could fail, whereas an assignment always succeeds.