note adrianh <p>One of my favourite languages, Pop-11, does it in quite a nice way. You define a separate subroutine for the lvalue side - known as an updater.</p> <p>For example, a function to access and update the second element of a linked list can be written in Pop-11 like this:</p> <code> define second(list); hd(tl(list)) enddefine; define updaterof second(value, list); value -> hd(tl(list)) enddefine; vars list; [a b c d] -> list; second(list) => ** b 42 -> second(list); second(list) => ** 42 list => ** [a 42 c d] </code> <p>All the advantages of writing separate setter/getter functions without the noise (as I see it) in the function names.</p> <p>In Pop-11 lvalues are poorly named, since they appear on the right! Doing <code>value -> something</code> in Pop-11 is the same as <code>something = value</code> in perl.</p> <p>I find it reads well (something goes into something else) and it also solves that whole "confusing = with ==" problem.</p> 218778 219886