Re: First language with conditional assignment?

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>
>It's very sad that programmers are trained to artificially separate the
>world into "statements" and "expressions" and hence end up, as above,
>preferring the less precise and more redundant form.


There's nothing artificial about "statements" and "expressions".
Those are the building block of a program. And if they are
well-defined, a programmer has a better chance of writing a clear and
understandable program that actually works.


>To me
>
> a := if e > f then b else c;
>
>has various advantages, e.g.:
>- common subexpression elimination.


Well, no, and there a conditional in the middle of the assignment.


Things that are made easy for the compiler are not usually
easier for the programmer.


>- make it blatantly obvious that this whole thing sets `a' without
> having to check what each branch does.


The first form (viz., if e > f then a := b else a := c;) also does that.
[This is definitely into semicolon land. Some languages have statements,
some are all expressions. -John]

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