> I have always disliked the := as assignment operator convention. In these declarative languages, assignment is done frequently.

> I also don't mind the -> for C pointers

Mmm. These two opinions should be contradictory if held on principle as opposed being held out of impression.

    it = next(it);
    if ((*it)->node->op == EQ) ...

vs.

    it := next(it);
    if it.node.op = EQ ...

Eh. I don't really mind either of those except for the stupid parens after the "if" in the first case.

Technically, if you don't make assignment an expression, you can even get away with using "=" for both. And "->" exists only because structs originally weren't really typechecked; you could take any pointer and just do "->struct_field" at it, and the compiler would auto-cast.