From: Martin DeMello <martindemello@...>
Date: 2004-07-16T18:07:15+09:00
Subject: Re: Do you want ":=" operator?

Xiangyu  Yang <xiangyu.yang@gmail.com> wrote:
> You may wonder why I focus on program appearance so much. The key point
> is productivity. I use script languages to speed my work. At the same
> time I'm a project leader and want my members can all improve their
> works. I had found someone access serial port by several hundred lines
> in C++, while it costs only 3 or 4 lines in Tcl; and another one spend
> half a day to write a hex2bin, while it's so easy in ruby. But it's
> hard  to force everyone to study Tcl or Ruby in deep. And normally they
> only use very limited part of the features. I don't want to teach ruby
> in ordor to use my cpu simulation environment. If the users can type
> code just as pseudo-code of the algorithm and even don't know they are
> actually programming in Ruby, it's the success of my design, and also
> the language's.

How about writing a small preprocessor that converts := to .value= ?
That should be transparent to your users.

Another option is to use ._= which at least looks like some sort of
operator (:

martin