> "=" was used in Fortran.
And most BASICs, though some (most?) required the keyword LET to introduce an assignment, as well.
And most BASICs, though some (most?) required the keyword LET to introduce an assignment, as well.
But most BASIC versions would accept 'let a = 1'
Personally, I don't see why the big fuss. If your assignment and comparison operators are the same the only thing you lose is doing x = (y == 2); kind of expressions (since you would disambiguate from conditional expressions).
Now, assignments are done more frequently than comparisons, hence why it makes sense for it to be the simpler/shorter one.
LET was virtually always optional; an expression by itself on a line (like 'X <> 10') is a syntax error anyway, so removing LET doesn't introduce any ambiguity.