Panopticon Central

# re: Why no ++ and --, redux

From your prior post:

>> If we introduced ++ and -- as assignment expressions, then it would be weird not to allow general assignment expressions. For example, in C#, you can say "if ((x = foo()) == 10) {}" and have the assignment done as part of evaluating the if expression. The problem, as you might have already guessed, is that we already use the = operator in expressions for testing value equality. Thus, there would be no easy way to introduce general assignment expressions into the language, which would make it strange that we had -- and ++.

I used to program in a language called Clipper, and when the introduced inline assignment they used ":="

BTW, that's one of the several things I *really* miss about Clipper when programming in VB. Another is "Codeblocks", which were like anonymous functions (I'm using Clipper syntax to the best of my memory):

// This multiples the two codeblock parameters
b= {|p1, p2| p1 * p2 }

? b.Eval(10,20) // Prints 200

Of course code blocks were only useful when they were passed to subroutines. That of course created lots of interesting scoping issues. Here is another codeblock example:

// This multiples the two codeblock parameters
srt= {|p1, p2| p1 > p2 }
arr= { 5, 12, 3, 9 }
ArraySort( arr, srt )
For Each e In arr
? e // Printed, in order, 3, 5, 9, and 12
Next
7/23/2004 12:12 AM | Mike Schinkel

# re: Why no ++ and --, redux

Mike, code blocks are a lot like C#'s anonymous methods. It's something we're definitely looking at for the future (i.e. not VB 2005). 7/26/2004 7:14 AM | Paul Vick

# re: Why no ++ and --, redux

Hey, how's it going Mike? I still miss Clipper--especially v5.0. Very powerful environment. I especially miss the product's include file capability 8/26/2004 6:23 AM | Chris