> For instance, if assignment were done in an expression, the targets would > have to be quoted to avoid having them evaluated. Or the assignment > expression would have to be a 'special expression' that did not evaluate > all its terms (like setq in some (just older?) lisps). In Python, that > 'special expression', with its 'quote, don't evaluate, targets' rule, is a > statement!
That's not such a big issue, many languages solve that without quoting. Ruby, for example. I agree that there's a point here. But nothing to do with quoting. You refer to Lisp, here's how things work in Caml: standard variables cannot be assigned, only defined with [let x = v in ...]. But you can create references, which can be assigned. When you wanna get the value of a ref you use [!x], if you wanna set it, use [x := ...]. It allows you to write [(if test then x else y) := ...], which is actually rarely needed. Thus, making implicit the ! everywhere except before := is acceptable. And you get the usual behavior with python. Finally, you just have to choose the value of [x = v], maybe [v], maybe [None]. __ David -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
