[Grace-core] Draft Minutes of Teleconference 9-10.2.2014

[Kim Bruce]

> 
> other things to discuss later:
> * var := vs = 

A brief comment:  I agree that it is confusing at first remembering the difference between = and := given our conditioning with C/C++/Java.

However constant declarations and assignments to variables are indeed quite different things and other languages successfully keep track of them.  In Pascal (famous teaching language :-), we have

const 
     i: Integer = 0;

var
     j: Integer;

j := 15;


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I find it useful to have an asymmetric symbol used for assignment as novices often have trouble remembering the direction of assignments. (They still get confused with :=, but a bit less in my experience).  

I also think it is useful to distinguish between definitions and assignments as they are quite distinct operations.  I had earlier suggested using "is" for constant definitions, but there seemed to be no enthusiasm for that.