Just for the record, "<-" came first. SInce we controlled all at PARC 
in the early 70s and no one liked ":=" as an assignment token (the 
"=" is not a good sign to have here), the early PARC languages all 
used the "<-" character. Both the screen and printing fonts that we 
made had this character. I was gone from PARC by the final stages of 
Smalltalk-80, but I remember others mentioning the long fight over 
whether they should capituate to the Standard 7-bit ASCII of the late 
70s. Apparently, they did.

Cheers,

Alan



At 11:40 AM +0100 4/23/01, John Hinsley wrote:
>Stephane Ducasse wrote:
>>
>>  Hi
>>
>>  I'm really wondering why Squeak code continues to have _
>>  instead of using :=.
>>
>
>I actually prefer it! I find := pretty awkward to type (so easy to leave
>the shift key up for too long). And if you go /:= you end up with
>Adolph!
>
>I think we should ask the VW developers (politely, but firmly) to add _
>as an alternative.
>
>Cheers
>
>John
>
>--
>******************************************************************************
>Marx: "Why do Anarchists only drink herbal tea?"
>Proudhon: "Because all proper tea is theft."
>******************************************************************************