Note: The attached image is a screenshot of page 31 of Dr. Charles Severance's book, Python for Everybody: Exploring Data Using Python 3 (2024-01-01 Revision).

I thought = was a mathematical operator, not a logical operator; why does Python use

>= instead of >==, or <= instead of <==, or != instead of !==?

Thanks in advance for any clarification. I would have posted this in the help forums of FreeCodeCamp, but I wasn't sure if this question was too.......unspecified(?) for that domain.

Cheers!

Edit: I think I get it now! Thanks so much to everyone for helping, and @[email protected] and @[email protected] in particular! ^_^

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[–] FizzyOrange 22 points 3 weeks ago (14 children)

>= and <= match the mathematical operators. The question you want to ask is why doesn't it use = for equality, and the answer is that = is already used for assignment (inherited from C among other languages).

In theory a language could use = for assignment and equality but it might be a bit confusing and error prone. Maybe not though. Someone try it and report back.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (9 children)

I think what I'm most confused about is I cannot for the life of me seem to wrap my head around the difference between "assignment" and "equality". They seem exactly the same to me: when a variable is assigned a value, it's equal to that value now.

Even if I were write the program

x = 20
print(x*2)

it would still print 40. Because x is equal to 20. Because it was assigned the value of 20.

Hell, I've even heard Dr. Severance say "equal to" in this context in earlier videos multiple times.

[–] FizzyOrange 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

They seem exactly the same to me: when a variable is assigned a value, it’s equal to that value now.

Yeah it's confusing because in maths they are the same and use the same symbol but they are 100% not the same in programming, yet they confusingly used the same symbol. In fact they even used the mathematical equality symbol (=) for the thing that is least like equality (i.e. assignment).

To be fair not all languages made that mistake. There are a fair few where assignment is like

x := 20

x <- 20

which is probably the most logical option because it really conveys the "store 20 in x" meaning.

Anyway on to your actual question... They definitely aren't the same in programming. Probably the simplest way to think of it is that assignment is a command: make these things equal! and equality is a question: are these things equal?

So for example equality will never mutate it's arguments. x == y will never change x or y because you're just asking "are they equal?". The value of that equality expression is a bool (true or false) so you can do something like:

a = (x == y)

x == y asks if they are equal and becomes a bool with the answer, and then the = stores that answer inside a.

In contrast = always mutates something. You can do this:

a = 3
a = 4
print(a)

And it will print 4. If you do this:

a = 3
a == 4
print(a)

It will (if the language doesn't complain at you for this mistake) print 3 because the == doesn't actually change a.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Ohhhhh! I think I get it now!

So == means "equals" and is a declaration of the state of things, while = means "assigned the value of` and is a command toward a certain state of things. A description vs an action. An observation of a thing as opposed to effecting that thing.

Is that about right?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

That's exactly it. Some languages (e.g. Rust) make it even more clear¹, by following math notation for assignment even closer:

let x = 5;

¹ simplified Rust a little bit, there's a bit more nuance

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Thanks so much to you and @[email protected] for helping! This has been driving me crazy for like 3-4 weeks now! >_<

[–] FizzyOrange 2 points 3 weeks ago

Well == is a question or a query rather than a declaration of the state of things because it isn't necessarily true.

You can write

a = (3 == 4)

which is perfectly valid code; it will just set a to be false, because the answer to the question "does 3 equal 4?" is no.

I think you've got it anyway.

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