> David Gries (Cornell University) was one of the recipients of "on-line" coaching during a lecture: > My own experience with lecturing before Edsger took plac

> David Gries (Cornell University) was one of the recipients of "on-line" coaching during a lecture: > My own experience with lecturing before Edsger took place in Marktoberdorf. It rests on the fact that in some languages (notably Fortran), the equality symbol and the assignment symbol are the same, and many people say "x equals e" when they mean "store the value of e in x," or "x becomes e." > I was lecturing along, when I said "x equals e" meaning an assignment of e to x. From the back of the room came a loud "becomes," and then a stunned silence. Finally, I gathered my wits and said, "Thank you, Edsger, for correcting me. If I make the same mistake again, stop me." Twenty minutes later, I made the same mistake, and again from the back of the room came "becomes" "Thanks, I won't make the mistake again," I said, and to this day I haven't! (https://history.computer.org/pioneers/dijkstra.html https://history.computer.org/pioneers/dijkstra.html)