Seeing a construction like this is a dead giveaway that the author is a C or C++ programmer. The double-equals signs represent a test for equality, as is expected. If just one equals sign was used, this would be an assignment operator to C programmers, which can be such a damaging mistake (the resulting statement meaning "a+b" (which will be 'true' for nonzero resulting values) and then "b equals c") that C programmers routinely use the double-equals form at all times, regardless of who they are talking to or whether the C form will be understood.