Re: Top 10 most common hard skills listed on resumes...

On 06/09/2024 18:23, James Kuyper wrote:

On Fri, 6 Sep 2024 10:35:16 +0100
Bart <bc@freeuk.com> wrote:
 

On 05/09/2024 22:37, James Kuyper wrote:

On 9/5/24 12:54, Kaz Kylheku wrote:

...

Both sides of an assignment can be complex expressions that
designate an object (though the right side need not).

>
So you've correctly identified the very fundamental asymmetry.
  

>
Sure, if you want to completely disregard all the cases where the
symmetry does exist.

 Anything can be considered symmetric, if you ignore all the aspects of
it that are asymmetric. As a result, calling something symmetric for
that reason isn't worth commenting on.
 A more useful way of describing what you're commenting on is not to
falsely claim that assignment in general is symmetric, but rather that
the particular assignment you're interest in is symmetric. And it's only
symmetric syntactically; the associated semantics are profoundly asymmetric.

In every kind of assignment, a variable is denoted in the same way on either side of '=' if accessing its value (either to read or write). It has the same type. It has the amount of indirection.
The same applies to more elaborate terms: if it can appear on the LHS, it can appear unchanged on the RHS:
  A[i+1].m = x;
  y = A[i+1].m;
That A[i+1].m term can be written the same way on either side, but it doesn't need to be on both sides of the same assignment! That wouldn't be that useful.
My A = A; example was to highlight that aspect in a simple manner.
 > And it's only
 > symmetric syntactically; the associated semantics are profoundly asymmetric.
As I said, the types are the same, the number of indirections are the same. And internally, I've given examples of IL and native code where the operands show the same properties.