[Newbies] Left-arrow for assignment

[Michael van der Gulik]

On Mon, 14 Jul 2008 01:20:25 -0400
Dominic Espinosa <dcespin at fastmail.fm> wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> I've experimented with Squeak a bit, and have also seen the debate on
> the assignment symbols and how to handle the left-arrow, ':=', and
> underscore at http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/5751. However, I want to use
> the left-arrow in my code. Is this possible? It seems like translation
> from ':=' to left-arrow and vice-versa should be straightforward
> (indeed, a sed script could do it).


I think that most people agree that the := should be used instead of a left arrow in code.

To use the left arrow, get a fine-tipped permanent marker and very carefully draw an arrow head on the '_' key on your keyboard. Then, you can use this key for when you want a left arrow in your code. You may need to choose a font that has a left arrow in it as well.

If you want to get fancy (and I encourage you to do so for education's sake :-) ), you could try mapping the underscore key to output a left arrow character (←, Unicode 0x2190) using whatever your operating system provides, and then modify the Squeak compiler to use that for modification. 

Gulik.

-- 
Michael van der Gulik <mikevdg at gmail.com>