Assignment V equality (was: Bliss was Re: DEC program listing

[Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner]

It was thus said that the Great Fred Cisin once stated:
> 
> The difference between equality and assignment can be a tough one for
> beginning programmers to master.  It would make life easier to use the
> left arrow, as APL does,  instead of the "equals sign" for assignment.
> ... or the N := N + 1, or MOV N, N + 1 ,  or even the LET N = N + 1 ,
> as used by Kurtz and Kemeny in their early versions of BASIC.

  Using '=' seems natural to me, but then again, I'm a programmer, not a
mathematician.

  Back in college, I took electronics for non-EE majors.  The first half of
the course dealt with analog electronics (including the analog
characteristics of transistors) and while most of the other students had an
easy time with that portion, I struggled hard and I *still* don't quite
understand the operating characteristics of a transistor, or what exactly
the difference is between a PNP and NPN transistor.  

  Second half the course though, was digital electronics which I found
trivial, although most of the other students had real difficulty with the
concept of +5V being a logical 1 (what?  5 = 1?  What?  What the hell are
you talking about?) and the less said about Boolean algebra, the better 8-P

  And if programmer can't grasp the difference between equality and
assignment, then heaven help us when you get to pointers ... 

  -spc (Thankfully, never had much difficulty with pointers since I had
	Assembly *before* hitting C ... )