Vitaliy wrote:
> Bob Ammerman wrote:
>>> Yes, it's standard C/C++ notation, but it's not "natural" and perhaps 
>>> that
>>> is the reason why most other languages don't let you do it.
>> I find the C/C++ concept/notation very natural.
>>
>> If I ask you to add 3 to a total, do you think in terms of:
>>
>> Total = Total + 3
>>
>> or
>>
>> Total += 3
>>
>> I submit that most people think (in English at least) more like the second
>> than the first.
> 
> The second one reads as "total plus equals three", which is nonsense. So far 
> I like Olin's suggestion to use an arrow the best:
> 
>     Total + 3 -> Total
> 
> ..which would read as "total plus three, store result in total". TI-89's 
> BASIC does it this way (they actually use an arrow character).
> 
> Although when I first got into programming (which was some time *after* 
> dinosaurs became extinct ;-P ), a statement in Commodore BASIC:
> 
>     X = X + 1
> 
> ..made total sense to me. I was 14 years old, spoke very little English, had 
> zero prior experience with programming and nobody around able to help.

Hmm I suspect that it was actually something like this:

10 let x = x + 1

Basically the 'let' became redundant so it was dropped. I also think
assembly language may have had a hand in the left to right style of
languages and maybe a little bit of stack manipulation. Of course this
is a guess.

-- 
Linux Home Automation         Neil Cherry       ncherry@linuxha.com
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