This is why languages like Pascal (and it's descendents) use := as assignment.

There are contradictory opinions about sytnax among programmers. Many programmers don't like the example assignment syntax above, but then many programmers also say that syntax is a relatively minor aspect of learning a language (even though the syntax of a language shapes the way you think about solving problems).

And many programmers do avoid certain languages precisely because they dislike the sytnax.

Nikalus Wirth, who created Pascal, Modula-2 and Oberon, had this to say about using the equal sign for assignment:

"A notorious example for a bad idea was the choice of the equal sign to denote assignment. It goes back to Fortran in 1957[a] and has blindly been copied by armies of language designers. Why is it a bad idea? Because it overthrows a century old tradition to let “=” denote a comparison for equality, a predicate which is either true or false. But Fortran made it to mean assignment, the enforcing of equality. In this case, the operands are on unequal footing: The left operand (a variable) is to be made equal to the right operand (an expression). x = y does not mean the same thing as y = x."