[Edu-sig] Equality and Assignment Notation

[Dustin Mitchell]

On Sun, Apr 07, 2002 at 05:04:19PM +0000, Josh McKenzie wrote:

> It may seem a trivial point to bring up, but while I can explain the
> difference between equality and assignment, I cannot explain the
> logic of using the '=' and '==' notation.

I assume that Python inherited this behavior from C/C++ or some other
languages, as you indicated.  The only language I can think of where there
was an independent justification for the syntax was BASIC, where one could
write:

10 LET X = 20

which takes its cue from mathematical prose.  The LET was optional, so this
was universally shortened to

10 X = 20

and the confusion began.

That's my theory.

Dustin

-- 

  Dustin Mitchell
  dustin@ywlcs.org
  http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~dustin/