Documentation, assignment in expression.

[Kiuhnm]

On 3/26/2012 13:13, Jussi Piitulainen wrote:
> Kiuhnm writes:
>> On 3/26/2012 10:52, Devin Jeanpierre wrote:
>>> On Sun, Mar 25, 2012 at 11:16 AM, Kiuhnm
>>> <kiuhnm03.4t.yahoo.it at mail.python.org>   wrote:
>>>> On 3/25/2012 15:48, Tim Chase wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> The old curmudgeon in me likes the Pascal method of using "=" for
>>>>> equality-testing, and ":=" for assignment which feels a little closer to
>>>>> mathematical use of "=".
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Unfortunately, ":=" means "is defined as" in mathematics. The "right"
>>>> operator would have been "<-".
>>>
>>>
>>> "Is defined as" is actually pretty reasonable. "Define this to be
>>> that" is a common way to speak about assignment. Its only difference
>>> is the present tense. For example, in Python, "def" stands for
>>> "define", but we can overwrite previous definitions::
>>>
>>>       def f(x): return x
>>>       def f(x): return 2
>>>       f(3) == 2
>>>
>>> In fact, in pretty every programming language that I know of with a
>>> "define" assignment verb, this is so. For example, in Scheme, x is 2
>>> at the end::
>>>
>>>       (define x 1)
>>>       (define x 2)
>>>       x
>>
>> When you write
>>     (define x 1)
>>     (define x 2)
>>     x
>> or, in F# and OCaml,
>>     let x = 1
>>     let x = 2
>>     x
>> you're saying
>>     x = 1
>>     {
>>        x = 2
>>        x
>>     }
>> You don't modify 'x': you hide it by defining another "value" (not
>> variable) with the same name.
>> Indeed,
>>     let x = 1
>>     let x = 2
>>     x
>> is shorthand for
>>     let x = 1 in
>>     let x = 2 in
>>     x
>
> No, Devin is right about Scheme. On "top level" re-definition is
> interpreted as assignment. The following mean the same:
>
> (define x 1) (define x 2) x
> (define x 1) (set! x 2) x
>
> Local definitions in the beginning of a "body" do not allow duplicate
> names at all. The following mean the same:
>
> (let () (define x 1) (define y 2) x)
> (letrec* ((x 1) (y 2)) x) ;letrec in older versions (not sure of R6RS)
>
> But (let () (define x 1) (define x 2) x) is still an error. Some
> implementations may give it a meaning. Not sure.

Thanks for the correction. I haven't written a line of code in Scheme 
for 15 years and it shows :(

Kiuhnm