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!

  • @owenfromcanadaEnglish
    1•2 hours ago

    Imagine saying these operators out loud.

    > is “is greater than”

    So it makes sense to use >= as “is greater than or equal to”

    You’d think = would be “is equal to”, but it’s already used for “set equal to” (i.e., assignment).

    So what symbol do we use for “is equal to”? The symbol used in many programming languages is ==, so Python chose to follow that convention.

    It’s worth noting that there are other languages that use = as “is equal to”, and use something else for assignment (like := for example). It just comes down to the history of the language and what conventions the original authors decided to use.