Re: Alternative to ~= for inequality?

[Michael Richter <ttmrichter@...>]

On 12 February 2013 00:57, William Sumner <prestonsumner@me.com> wrote:

I think it's a little inaccurate to portray it as a "bikeshedding" debate, as if syntax is a solved problem and any discussion of it is off-limits.

I don't think it's very much, if any at all, beyond a bike shed debate.  Syntax is, for all practical purposes a solved problem.  Syntax is largely, past a certain point of expressiveness, utterly unimportant.  Semantics rules the day.

People saying it's too hard to remember ~= over != are arguing the colour of the bike shed and nothing beyond that, IMO.  I "speak" a dozen or so programming languages semi- to fully-fluently (most of these having far more alien constructs than ~ vs. ! in inequality statements) and have no problem at all remembering things.  Perhaps this is because I spend my time learning the language and its idioms instead of wishing it was Yet Another Curly Brace Language.

--
"Perhaps people don't believe this, but throughout all of the discussions of entering China our focus has really been what's best for the Chinese people. It's not been about our revenue or profit or whatnot."
--Sergey Brin, demonstrating the emptiness of the "don't be evil" mantra.