why no ++?

[Michael Abbott]

Markus Schaber <markus at schabi.de> wrote in 
news:1709172.gFLt9SDvcz at lunix.schabi.de:

> Hi,
> 
> Michael Abbott <michael at rcp.co.uk> schrub:
>  
>> Oops!  Very true.  I should have rewritten it as
> 
>>      e = 'wow'
>>      b,c,d = 'wow' a = 'wow'
> 
> This still isn't exactly true.
> 
> Imagine, that the expression on the right side has side effects, than 
> you should only evaluate it one time. 
> 
> And with the get/set operators that seem to emerge, access to instance 
> variables also can have side effects, that means the order in which you 
> assign is incorrect, as - at least according to chapter 6.3 of th 1.5.2 
> reference manual - the assignment order is strictly left to right.

Oh dearie me.  Well, I think this does support my case about obfuscation, 
but I agree that your writing out is much more long winded.

> 
> In those cases, one would have to write
> 
>   tmp = "wow"
>   a = tmp
>   b,c,d = tmp
>   e = tmp
>   del tmp
> 
> to acheive the same behaviour as in
>   a = b,c,d = e = "wow"
> 
> (as long as I didn't miss anything)

LOL.  I expect we're there now: except of course, you have to add the 
proviso that tmp is a new name not already in use

> 
>> Hmm.  The argument about obfuscation versus repetition comes more
>> clearly into focus.  I still think multiple assignment is a bad
>> thing... 
> 
> Then just don't use it :-)
> 
> I think it sometimes is a good thing to have, but you have to know 
> about the exact semantics.

Bah!  I confess defeat (mostly).

Well, I didn't know the detailed semantics, so it's been quite useful to 
learn how this actually works...