[Edu-sig] Setting a variable's value

[kirby urner]

> I believe Iverson used = to mean equals (as God intended it) and used <- (an
> arrow) to mean assignment. He knew enough not to mess with a perfectly good
> existing notation :-).
>
>
> --John

Yes, that's true and apropos.

Once you've made the decision to stray from ASCII, a whole new world
of custom operators opens up, along with the nightmare of custom
keyboards (but hey, Princeton had 'em, and APL was the first computer
language I really got to know).

In J, the assignment operator is =: although =. is also meaningful
(local assignment).

= is a comparator.

For more on J, see:
http://www.4dsolutions.net/ocn/Jlang.html
(Iverson himself helped me with this essay).

Kirby