No, that actually happened. I actually knew pascal used := (I programmed quite a bit of pascal/delphi myself back in the day) but I never knew its inventor ever made a big deal about the assignment operator until I posted this.

But that was just an offnote observation, when I got to college I already knew how to program but MANY of my student peers had A LOT of trouble in the first year grasping the basics. These were not dummy students, they were top ~3% of students in the college entrance exams.

At least 50% of my class didn't understand pointers properly by then end of first year.