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anything like C++ references?

Erik Max Francis max at alcyone.com
Mon Jul 14 21:04:40 EDT 2003 
Roy Smith wrote:

> The wierd thing is that I don't think either one really matches what a
> mathematician means when he writes "=".  In math, "=" is neither an
> assignment or a test: it's an assertion.

Right.  In fact, when a mathematician really does mean rebinding, they
use an operator decidely unlike =, often :=, <-, <=, or some other
similar ASCIIzation.  The equals sign in mathematics does not mean the
same thing it does in modern programming languages.  It's just something
that one has to deal with early on or be forever annoyed.

It's arguable that the Pascal family has the most mathematics-like
operations for equality and assignment here, but really it's just a
semantic issue of knowing which operator means what.  One can even get
used to things like % means string formatting if one really tries :-).

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