Re: Is this the Free-Format that we asked for?

I really don't see why you find these hard to follow.   Yes, for someone
still in school learning this stuff, its a bit confusing.  But after
working with it for a few days, its second nature.

I've wanted MANY TIMES to be able to do something like a=b=c=0.

Something like A = (B = C) is basically just a COMP op-code, except that
you can give a more meaningful name to the result than "57".  

Personally, I like languages (like C) that use a different operator for
comparisons vs. assignments.  If you know that = is an assignment, and ==
is a comparison, your examples are pretty easy.

must be assigning 0 to everything, since = is only assignment:
a = b = c = 0

must be assigning a boolean value to a, since == is a comparison:
a = (b == c)

etc


On Thu, 2 Nov 2000, Jim Langston wrote:

> The first time I saw that statement,
> a=b=c=d=e=f=0
> 
> was in QuickBasic 4.0 back in 1990.  I had asked someone what in the
> heck that was supposed to mean and they told me.  That must be one of
> the worst statements I have ever seen.  I would rather use up the 7 lines
> and initialize them each separately.
> 
> Nothing destroys a programs maintainability as quickly as shortcuts.
> 
> Try this one I've seen.
> 
> A = (B = C)
> 
> Hint: A is boolean.
> 
> 

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