interface for numerical integration, roots etc

Though this is interesting background, it's got to be put in the context of
what already exists.  Maxima (for better or worse) uses ':' for assignment,
'=' for equations, and ':=' for function definitions.

Some other languages do use the same symbol for assignment and named
parameters, but that seems like a bad idea for an expression language like
Maxima where it is perfectly sensible and useful to have an argument which
is a literal equation or an in-line assignment.  R made this decision (I
would call it a mistake), but now has <- for assignment in addition to =.

              -s

On Wed, May 26, 2010 at 17:19, John Lapeyre <pdl at johnlapeyre.com> wrote:

> If it were a popularity contest, it looks like ':'
> would win. = and => are also popular. Mathematica's -> is
> not mentioned.
>
> From Rosetta Code
> These are either true named parameters or simulated with
> data structures. Some of the examples without true
> named parameters are conventions, a few are example implementations.
>
> Ada           =>
> AppleScript   :
> AutoHotkey    =
> C++           foo(foo_params(42).x(7).z(23.54));
> Clojure       :key   (like lisp)
> Common lisp   :key  (no infix)
> E             =>
> Fortran 95    =
> Haskell       ' '
> J             =
> JavaScript    :
> Modula-3      :=
> Objective-C   :
> OCaml         :    ~key:val  (needs ~)
> Oz            :
> Perl          =>
> Python        =  (there areseveral kinds, * and ** are identifier prefixes)
> Ruby          =>
> Scala         =
> Scheme        'key   (no infix)
> Smalltalk     :
> Suneido       :
> Tcl           -key val
> VB            :=
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