Path: csiph.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!not-for-mail
From: Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.python
Subject: Re: Assignment Versus Equality
Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2016 11:31:34 -0400
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On Sun, 26 Jun 2016 07:26:34 -0700 (PDT), Rustom Mody
<rustompmody@gmail.com> declaimed the following:

>This is a tad bit unfair (I think)
>Initially Basic (BASIC as things were spelt then) used
>LET X = Y
>for the assignment
>

	K&K/Dartmouth BASIC used the first token of each statement to define
what type of statement followed... Making parsing a tad easier for the
interpreter... Sort statements by line number, read first token of line,
invoke proper processing for that type of statement.

LET
IF
GOSUB
GOTO
RETURN
READ
PRINT
INPUT
DATA
OPEN
etc.

... Every statement had a unique keyword as the first token.

>The general success of the succinct and confusing approach starting Fortran and

	FORTRAN goes back to the late 50s, K&K BASIC is mid-60s if not later.
Autocode predated FORTRAN and also use = for assignment:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autocode#Mark_1_Autocode

-- 
	Wulfraed                 Dennis Lee Bieber         AF6VN
    wlfraed@ix.netcom.com    HTTP://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/