Req7: Have separate syntax for assignment "=" and comparison "=="

re: Req7: Have separate syntax for assignment "=" and comparison "=="

VBer — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 17:02:09 GMT

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re: Req7: Have separate syntax for assignment "=" and comparison "=="

Shimmy Weitzhandler — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 08:52:31 GMT

It's never gonna happen, we all know that so why waste on explanations, I do think it would be a good idea (potentially this would allow production of the assigned value like in C#, and so implementation of ++x/x++ (dec/inc pre/post) operators).

But I guess there are things that you can't just change.

re: Req7: Have separate syntax for assignment "=" and comparison "=="

Kyralessa — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 04:06:10 GMT

I'm not a fan of this idea. VB is VB, and this is just the way it does assignment and equality. The confusing lambda examples at the beginning aren't, in my opinion, a result of the = serving two purposes, but the poor syntactical way lambda expressions were implementing in VB .NET.

re: Req7: Have separate syntax for assignment "=" and comparison "=="

Simon Geering — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:53:19 GMT

This is one of the things that is doing my nut trying learning C#. If your a VB guy it is just obvious what is meant by = based on the context.

My vote would be that there is no need for == and =, this is one time to keep things as is.

re: Req7: Have separate syntax for assignment "=" and comparison "=="

Richard — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 11:54:54 GMT

The idea of somehow distinguishing the two types of = via rendering seems good. Perhaps the IDE could simply use different colour-coding for each type of =, but they could continue to be displayed and used as a single = sign as at present.

re: Req7: Have separate syntax for assignment "=" and comparison "=="

Richard — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 11:52:09 GMT

Surely VB is VB and people shouldn't try to alter its syntax to match C#'s or Delphi's.

re: Req7: Have separate syntax for assignment "=" and comparison "=="

Kevin Ryall — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 03:37:33 GMT

I don’t like inline assignment, but separate operators for assignment and equality would definitely make code more readable – I’ve never liked the VB way of overloading the meaning of the = operator. It’s probably too late to change this now though – even with full backwards compatibility, it would just create confusion.

re: Req7: Have separate syntax for assignment "=" and comparison "=="

Đonny — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 20:58:40 GMT

My vote FOR inline assignments.

In fact VB currently treats assignment as statement not as expression. I like the possibility to treat assignment as expression (something that produces value and we can then work with the value.

Well it might be confusing a little, but this is as well:

Dim x = a = b

For compatibility of existing code, we cannot change meaning of the = operator to become assignment in all contexts. I suggest leaving behavior of = unchanged and introducing a new assign operator for inline assignment. The best chois is IMO :=, but I'm afraid it cannot be used because of possible confilicts when passing parameters by name like this:

Sub DoSomething(ByVal x%)

End Sub

Sub Test()

Dim x = 5

DoSomething(x := 7) 'What does it mean?

End Sub

So, we can introduce other operator like "<-".

To avoid confusion, we can also introduce a new operator for comparison ==.

Maybe we can also introduce a new operators === and !== (or <!> or <<>> ? ;see JavaScript or PHP).

Dim a$ = ""

Dim b$ = Nothing

Dim c = a = b 'Dim c As Boolean = True

Dim c = a == b 'True

Dim c = a === b 'False

Dim c = a <- b ' a = b : Dim c As String = Nothing

'Late binding:

Dim xc As Object = "x"c

Dim xs As Object = "x"

Dim c = xc = xs 'True

Dim c = xc == xs 'True

Dim c = xc === xs 'False

Dim c = xc <> xs 'False

Dim c = xc <!> xs 'True

re: Req7: Have separate syntax for assignment "=" and comparison "=="

MarkJ — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 12:51:34 GMT

No inline assignment please, it causes too many bugs due to it being misread.

re: Req7: Have separate syntax for assignment "=" and comparison "=="

Jonathan Allen — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 04:17:58 GMT

Thank you!

I know it may seem odd to be grateful for not getting a feature, but mixing assignments and expressions is just begging for trouble.