On Sun, 25 Mar 2012 17:16:16 +0200, Kiuhnm wrote: > On 3/25/2012 15:48, Tim Chase wrote: >> The old curmudgeon in me likes the Pascal method of using "=" for >> equality-testing, and ":=" for assignment which feels a little closer >> to mathematical use of "=". > > Unfortunately, ":=" means "is defined as" in mathematics. The "right" > operator would have been "<-".
That's hardly universal. In approx 20 years of working with mathematics textbooks, I've never seen := used until today. I see that Wikipedia lists no fewer than seven different symbols for "is defined as": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_mathematical_symbols including the one I'm familiar with, ≝, or "def" over "=". Besides, just because mathematicians use a symbol, doesn't mean programming languages can't use it for something else. -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
