One minor correction to note... technically = is used for assignment, and := is used for initialization of local variables, fields, and default parameters. The primary reason between := and = is to distinguish a variable declaration from normal assignment (to avoid those pesky typos you sometimes get in dynamic languages which creates a new variable). It is similar to what C# and Scala do with the "var" keyword.
jodastephen Thu 12 Jun 2008
Just in case they hadn't been spotted, there are two blog posts in the Java community about Fan:
http://beust.com/weblog/archives/000488.html http://www.jroller.com/scolebourne/entry/the_fan_language_is_it
brian Fri 13 Jun 2008
Thanks much guys for the great blog posts!
One minor correction to note... technically = is used for assignment, and := is used for initialization of local variables, fields, and default parameters. The primary reason between := and = is to distinguish a variable declaration from normal assignment (to avoid those pesky typos you sometimes get in dynamic languages which creates a new variable). It is similar to what C# and Scala do with the "var" keyword.