im not sure if in usenet message i am able to draw it but maybe put it
in some editor that has font where chars are same size

.................
.................
.................
..*************..
..*************..
.................
.................
..*************..
..*************..
..**.............
..**.............
.................


it is like = but with some small line, suggestin it is for assign not for equality,,, asci dont have it more worse im not sure if even unicode has
it and this is shocking

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> wrote in news:117mfle$3aage$1@dont-email.me:

im not sure if in usenet message i am able to draw it but maybe put it
in some editor that has font where chars are same size

.................
.................
.................
..*************..
..*************..
.................
.................
..*************..
..*************..
..**.............
..**.............
.................

it is like = but with some small line, suggestin it is for assign not for equality,,, asci dont have it more worse im not sure if even unicode has
it and this is shocking

C doesn't use that character. Adapt to whatever language you want to use.

You might look at a Forth system and see if you can define the meaning of
that symbol to do what you want. Forth allows you to do things like that.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-09-07 21:21, David LaRue wrote:

fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> wrote in news:117mfle$3aage$1@dont-email.me:

im not sure if in usenet message i am able to draw it but maybe put it
in some editor that has font where chars are same size

.................
.................
.................
..*************..
..*************..
.................
.................
..*************..
..*************..
..**.............
..**.............
.................


it is like = but with some small line, suggestin it is for assign not for
equality,,, asci dont have it more worse im not sure if even unicode has
it and this is shocking

I'm lacking context why you need that, for what you need that, what it
is supposed to mean - differentiate assignment from equality; is that
what you tried to express? - and why it's non-existence is "shocking".

To find characters by a (hand-painted) glyph you can use this service: https://shapecatcher.com/

If you dislike C's '==' for equality, and '=' for assignment, so much
that you continue your whining and get even mentally shocked I affirm
the previously given suggestion to just switch language (and newsgroup).

(There's many other languages that made (IMO) better choices than "C" concerning these operators/operations. Often there's ':=' used for the assignment and '=' for equality. Or there's context dependent parsing
and interpretation of the '=' symbol.)

It's your choice.

Janis

BTW, I see that in Unicode there seems to be "Colon equals" '?'
(Unicode hexadecimal: 0x2254, In block: Mathematical Operators),
which resembles the common two-character assignment symbol ':=',
but depending on the font it's hard to recognize. - And it's not
common or guaranteed that languages support Unicode characters,
let alone as part of the basic language definition.

C doesn't use that character. Adapt to whatever language you want to use.

You might look at a Forth system and see if you can define the meaning of that symbol to do what you want. Forth allows you to do things like that.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-09-07, Janis Papanagnou wrote:

On 2026-09-07 21:21, David LaRue wrote:

fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> wrote in news:117mfle$3aage$1@dont-email.me:

im not sure if in usenet message i am able to draw it but maybe put it
in some editor that has font where chars are same size

.................
.................
.................
..*************..
..*************..
.................
.................
..*************..
..*************..
..**.............
..**.............
.................


it is like = but with some small line, suggestin it is for assign not for >>> equality,,, asci dont have it more worse im not sure if even unicode has >>> it and this is shocking

I'm lacking context why you need that, for what you need that, what it
is supposed to mean - differentiate assignment from equality; is that
what you tried to express? - and why it's non-existence is "shocking".

I think fir just needs something new to complain about.


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Dan Purgert wrote:

On 2026-09-07, Janis Papanagnou wrote:

On 2026-09-07 21:21, David LaRue wrote:

fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> wrote in news:117mfle$3aage$1@dont-email.me: >>>

im not sure if in usenet message i am able to draw it but maybe put it >>>> in some editor that has font where chars are same size

.................
.................
.................
..*************..
..*************..
.................
.................
..*************..
..*************..
..**.............
..**.............
.................


it is like = but with some small line, suggestin it is for assign not for >>>> equality,,, asci dont have it more worse im not sure if even unicode has >>>> it and this is shocking

I'm lacking context why you need that, for what you need that, what it
is supposed to mean - differentiate assignment from equality; is that
what you tried to express? - and why it's non-existence is "shocking".

I think fir just needs something new to complain about.

If he would just discover C# he would find everything at his fingertips.
C++ is fatally flawed.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Mon, 7 Sep 2026 15:53:48 +0200, fir wrote:

it is like = but with some small line, suggestin it is for assign
not for equality ...

Algol-like languages had ":=? for this decades ago.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 08/09/2026 01:10, Janis Papanagnou wrote:

On 2026-09-07 21:21, David LaRue wrote:

fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> wrote in news:117mfle$3aage$1@dont-email.me:

im not sure if in usenet message i am able to draw it but maybe put it
in some editor that has font where chars are same size

.................
.................
.................
..*************..
..*************..
.................
.................
..*************..
..*************..
..**.............
..**.............
.................


it is like = but with some small line, suggestin it is for assign not
for
equality,,, asci dont have it more worse im not sure if even unicode has >>> it and this is shocking

I'm lacking context why you need that, for what you need that, what it
is supposed to mean - differentiate assignment from equality; is that
what you tried to express? - and why it's non-existence is "shocking".

It is not always easy to tell with fir, but I believe he thought it was shocking that this symbol is not in Unicode. I have no idea what this
symbol is supposed to be, or where he has taken it from, or what he
thinks it should mean. But if it is not in Unicode, then that is a good indication that it would be a very poor choice for anything as it would
be unfamiliar to everyone else. And it would be impossible to type when coding.


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Janis Papanagnou pisze:

On 2026-09-07 21:21, David LaRue wrote:

fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> wrote in news:117mfle$3aage$1@dont-email.me:

im not sure if in usenet message i am able to draw it but maybe put it
in some editor that has font where chars are same size

.................
.................
.................
..*************..
..*************..
.................
.................
..*************..
..*************..
..**.............
..**.............
.................


it is like = but with some small line, suggestin it is for assign not
for
equality,,, asci dont have it more worse im not sure if even unicode has >>> it and this is shocking

I'm lacking context why you need that, for what you need that, what it
is supposed to mean - differentiate assignment from equality; is that
what you tried to express? - and why it's non-existence is "shocking".

i make some deductions about C (im not sure if i can it deduction here
but it is thinking with yeald to quite grounded conclusions (i find it
almost scientific - in some way)

some time ago (not even so long it was probably like i was lats time
visiting this group) i concluded that if(a==3) is wrong and it seems
one and only proper way here is if(a=3) it means = may be for
comparison, not for assigment

THUS you need something for assigment and from traditional reasons it
should be (probably ) close to = and more like in direction to <- but
not so far (being in traditionalist spirit here)

THUS i think it should be something like i drawed here and its realy
WEIRD there is no so sign in ascii/unicode as if some think this kind
of char suggests itself

the link you give found something like that

a?2

its close but = ? what i need should be more like = and this small
addon/tail also should be slightly more visible..though this "Leftwards harpoon with barb down below long dash" (0x296b) in fact is not totally teriible
but probably depending on font.. in editor i use now notepad++ and
lucida console it not renders

To find characters by a (hand-painted) glyph you can use this service: https://shapecatcher.com/

If you dislike C's '==' for equality, and '=' for assignment, so much
that you continue your whining and get even mentally shocked I affirm
the previously given suggestion to just switch language (and newsgroup).

(There's many other languages that made (IMO) better choices than "C" concerning these operators/operations. Often there's ':=' used for the assignment and '=' for equality. Or there's context dependent parsing
and interpretation of the '=' symbol.)

It's your choice.

Janis

BTW, I see that in Unicode there seems to be "Colon equals" '?'
(Unicode hexadecimal: 0x2254, In block: Mathematical Operators),
which resembles the common two-character assignment symbol ':=',
but depending on the font it's hard to recognize. - And it's not
common or guaranteed that languages support Unicode characters,
let alone as part of the basic language definition.

C doesn't use that character.ÿ Adapt to whatever language you want to
use.

You might look at a Forth system and see if you can define the meaning of
that symbol to do what you want.ÿ Forth allows you to do things like
that.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Lawrence D?Oliveiro pisze:

On Mon, 7 Sep 2026 15:53:48 +0200, fir wrote:

it is like = but with some small line, suggestin it is for assign
not for equality ...

Algol-like languages had ":=? for this decades ago.

i know borland pascal 7.0 if i remember got this
but a:=2 is wrong looks bad two types

should be one sign - and i really find it shocking this is not in
unicode - som many , thousands of weak usage chars and that one
absent...



--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 08/09/2026 10:56, fir wrote:

Janis Papanagnou pisze:

On 2026-09-07 21:21, David LaRue wrote:

fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> wrote in news:117mfle$3aage$1@dont-
email.me:

im not sure if in usenet message i am able to draw it but maybe put it >>>> in some editor that has font where chars are same size

.................
.................
.................
..*************..
..*************..
.................
.................
..*************..
..*************..
..**.............
..**.............
.................


it is like = but with some small line, suggestin it is for assign
not for
equality,,, asci dont have it more worse im not sure if even unicode
has
it and this is shocking

I'm lacking context why you need that, for what you need that, what it
is supposed to mean - differentiate assignment from equality; is that
what you tried to express? - and why it's non-existence is "shocking".

i make some deductions about C (im not sure if i can it deduction here
but it is thinking with yeald to quite grounded conclusions (i find it almost scientific - in some way)

some time ago (not even so long it was probably like i was lats time visiting this group) i concluded that if(a==3) is wrong and it seems
one and only proper way here isÿÿ if(a=3) it means = may be for
comparison, not for assigment

It IS wrong in my view, but the fact is that most languages now use '='
for assignment, and those using C-like syntax use '==' for equality.

C is obviously never going to change, but some languages do still use
'=' for equality, and for assignment they might use any of:

:=
<-
->
= (when assignments are not allowed in expression)

A few might use a quite different syntax (eg. Lisp or COBOL).

Using an obscure, hard to see and hard to type symbol like ? is not
practical.

(I use '=' for equality, ':=' for runtime assignment, but I also use '='
for compile-time assignments and identities, since there is no ambiguity.)

Of course this might all be irrelevant in a couple more years when
everyone uses tools to write code for them.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

bart pisze:

On 08/09/2026 10:56, fir wrote:

Janis Papanagnou pisze:

On 2026-09-07 21:21, David LaRue wrote:

fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> wrote in news:117mfle$3aage$1@dont-
email.me:

im not sure if in usenet message i am able to draw it but maybe put it >>>>> in some editor that has font where chars are same size

.................
.................
.................
..*************..
..*************..
.................
.................
..*************..
..*************..
..**.............
..**.............
.................


it is like = but with some small line, suggestin it is for assign
not for
equality,,, asci dont have it more worse im not sure if even
unicode has
it and this is shocking

I'm lacking context why you need that, for what you need that, what it
is supposed to mean - differentiate assignment from equality; is that
what you tried to express? - and why it's non-existence is "shocking".

i make some deductions about C (im not sure if i can it deduction here
but it is thinking with yeald to quite grounded conclusions (i find it
almost scientific - in some way)

some time ago (not even so long it was probably like i was lats time
visiting this group) i concluded that if(a==3) is wrong and it seems
one and only proper way here isÿÿ if(a=3) it means = may be for
comparison, not for assigment

It IS wrong in my view, but the fact is that most languages now use '='
for assignment, and those using C-like syntax use '==' for equality.

C is obviously never going to change, but some languages do still use
'=' for equality, and for assignment they might use any of:

ÿ :=
ÿ <-
ÿ ->
ÿ =ÿÿÿÿÿÿ (when assignments are not allowed in expression)

A few might use a quite different syntax (eg. Lisp or COBOL).

Using an obscure, hard to see and hard to type symbol like ? is not practical.

(I use '=' for equality, ':=' for runtime assignment, but I also use '='
for compile-time assignments and identities, since there is no ambiguity.)

Of course this might all be irrelevant in a couple more years when
everyone uses tools to write code for them.

well of course when i say on c here i mix two separate cases

1) one is whan can be in fact changed in c (like the list of annoances
was in thic category, becouse there also are possible addons to c but it
would change it so much it wouldnt be quite c so this would be in second category)


2) the one that is based on C ideas but the conclusions deduced from c
ideas would make practically different language


the new sign i talk eventually even could be added maybe to old c
but indeed unlikely..so maybe what i say here is around the second
category (it is on c ideas)


AS i said i personally think old c should not change and what thic c
comitee is doing is probably mostly wrong..i think though they should
even revert some changes back - but some of this annoyances i mentioned
they really could add to c (like this seeing down symbols and ad hoc
enum tags especially - or at least allow 64 bit tags ('dEf3effe' etc) )

SO I MIX THIS ABOVE TWO CATEGORIES but it would be inpractical to each
time talk clearly on which category im talking, so i skip it as
some my himself guess what would be practical in old ca nad what not


as to non practicality imo in new co some could in fact do some
remapping of keywoard and add some new chars like in control+key or
alt+key becouse overally you need more chars for operators in new modern language imo

obviously there could be no compromises in new language ;c

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

bart <bc@freeuk.com> writes:
[...]

Using an obscure, hard to see and hard to type symbol like ? is not practical.

Agreed. (That's U+296B, LEFTWARDS HARPOON WITH BARB DOWN BELOW LONG DASH).

fir doesn't write coherently enough to know what he's suggesting,
but there is some validity to the complaint that C's uses of "="
for assignment can be confusing. But this will not change in any
language called "C" (or "C++", for that matter).

If I were creating a new language, I might use ":=" for assignment
and "==" for comparison. I'd use "==" rather than "=" only to
cater to programmers accustomed to C and the languages it influences.
And I'd discuss that language elsewhere.

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com
void Void(void) { Void(); } /* The recursive call of the void */

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Keith Thompson pisze:

bart <bc@freeuk.com> writes:
[...]

Using an obscure, hard to see and hard to type symbol like ? is not
practical.

Agreed. (That's U+296B, LEFTWARDS HARPOON WITH BARB DOWN BELOW LONG DASH).

fir doesn't write coherently enough to know what he's suggesting,
but there is some validity to the complaint that C's uses of "="
for assignment can be confusing. But this will not change in any
language called "C" (or "C++", for that matter).

If I were creating a new language, I might use ":=" for assignment
and "==" for comparison. I'd use "==" rather than "=" only to
cater to programmers accustomed to C and the languages it influences.
And I'd discuss that language elsewhere.

you would but im not "standard freak"..c is abous standard bout also
about c ideas (if ther real quality od c becouse i agree some may have inferior ideas which they only glue to c to get an attention)..
its also about c programming, c culture and so on

for me if there were two goups , ona about standard and aone anout ideas
the one about standard would be wuite dead for me (i maybe wrote there
once a few years, ) and this one about good ideas quite alive ;c


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Janis Papanagnou pisze:

On 2026-09-07 21:21, David LaRue wrote:

fir <profesor.fir@gmail.com> wrote in news:117mfle$3aage$1@dont-email.me:

im not sure if in usenet message i am able to draw it but maybe put it
in some editor that has font where chars are same size

.................
.................
.................
..*************..
..*************..
.................
.................
..*************..
..*************..
..**.............
..**.............
.................

eventually it could ba also something like this


.................
.................
.................
..*************..
..*************..
.................
.................
..*******........
..*******........
.................
.................
.................

it is like equal sign but one dash/ shorter and left aligned

its less mathematical but more dynamical co maybe its better as
assigning in assembly is dynamic operation not mathematical

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

In article <117ophj$3il1$1@kst.eternal-september.org>,
Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> wrote:
...

If I were creating a new language, I might use ":=" for assignment
and "==" for comparison. I'd use "==" rather than "=" only to
cater to programmers accustomed to C and the languages it influences.
And I'd discuss that language elsewhere.

Note that another way to solve this problem is simply to not allow
assignments to be expressions. This has been suggested at various times in
the past on this newsgroup.

The fact that assignments are expressions is one of the nifty features of C (and C-like) language(s) and allows for nifty, clever, compact code that is dazzling to the eye (and confusing to the newbie). A double win.

But if you require assignments to be parsed as statements rather than as expressions, then you can use = for both operations. E.g.,

if (a = b)

has to mean compare a and b, since it can't be an assignment.

BASIC is an example of such a language.

--
Politics is show business for ugly people.

Sports is politics for stupid people.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)