[Tutor] assignment sign definition

[Alan Gauld]

On 01/12/15 05:04, jo stone via Tutor wrote:
> Hello,
> I am trying to teach myself Python, and got hung up on the definition of Assignment signs...

This is usually only a big problem for those who are strong in
mathematics where = means that two things are equal in value and does
not mean that either of them is changing value., In programming (in
Python and many other languages) it means that the left hand side
takes on the value of the right hand side. (For expressing equality
we use a double == instead)

> The explination I have is:
> "A good way to understand the statement userAge = 0 is to think of it as userAge <- 0."
> 
> I read this as "userAge is less than minus 0"    which make absolutely NO sense to me...

This looks like a classic case of somebody confusing things
by trying to explain it :-) The <- is intended to be seen
as an arrow pointing from the 0 to the userAge name. It
indicates that userAge takes on the value 0.

Another way of thinking about it is to read assignments in
code as the word "becomes" so you read

userAge = 0

as

userAge becomes zero.

For a different (and slightly more technically correct)
explanation of assignment in Python try reading the section
on variables in my tutor(see below) in the "Raw Materials"
topic.

HTH
-- 
Alan G
Author of the Learn to Program web site
http://www.alan-g.me.uk/
http://www.amazon.com/author/alan_gauld
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