Re: Operators '=' ‘:=’ ‘::=’ in manual

[Paul Smith]

On Thu, 2020-12-10 at 18:19 +0000, DUDZIAK Krzysztof wrote:
> Operators ‘=’ ‘:=’ ‘::=’ seem to have two dimensions these control
> things expansion recursiveness (simple vs. recursive expansion)
> expansion time (immediate vs. deferred)

No, there is only one dimension really.

Either the content of the variable is expanded exactly once when it's
defined, or else it's not expanded when it's defined and is expanded
every time the variable is used.

All other aspects are just side-effects of this single difference.

I do agree that the terms "recursive variable" and "simple variable"
are misleading and/or not very informative.  These terms have been used
in the docs since it was created.