Re: vote on assignments as expressions

"Laurent Dube" <[email protected]> wrote in message

> > So we need an alternative syntax like "a <- b", but I don't want to use
that
> > for all assignments because "a = b" is so common.  Once again
familiarity
> > beats logic.
>
> The desired sequence of actions being
>
>     a = b
>     foo( a )
>
> you propose to add a binary operator to the language
>
>     foo( a operator b)
>
> that would allow to combine the two actions while respecting their
> sequence.
> An easy way out would be to use a function instead of an operator:
>
>     foo( a.assign!(b) )
>
> where assign in place is the functional equivalent of the familiar
> operator version of the same action.

I proposed the exact same thing a week ago.  I had to retract the proposal
when I realized that a method can only change the value of an existing
attribute.  It cannot create a new attribute or rebind an attribute like an
assignment statement does.