same as the equal operator. this is the one that pascal uses
i.e. in pascal you say a:=b (not a=b)

- Pouya / FOO!!!

#define PURE_STUPIDITY 128 PROGRAMMERS

But do you know why many listings of pseudo code use it? It has historical significance and mathmatical significance.

Many fundamentalist mathematicians argue that a = a + b is mathmatically incorrect (you don't want to argue with them, once I tried arguing with a math professor over inane gramatical things like this, and it was so pointless).

But to a programmer, the statement a = a + b makes perfect sense. Fortran is often recognized as the first high level programming language. Cobol came second, then Algol was third (I recall reading it was about 1959-1960). That's when the := operator came into use as the asignment operator in high level programming languages. It's because the fundamentalist mathematicians wanted it that way and refused to let the blasphemous programmers run havoc on thier precious equality statement. Note that many languages have been derived from Algol, including Pacal, C, and Ada.

Anyone historians here care to correct my misleading information?



Edited by - Marsupial Rodentia on August 3, 2000 4:46:04 PM

No difference from what I can tell. It looks like _int16 is just another name for __int16.

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