At first I also had a hard time accepting that there was no difference between pattern matching and assignment, especially when you’re told = is not “assign” but “match” and then get an example of foo = "bar" # "bar"

The guides have been improved a bit since I initially read them by immediately showing the “inverse” expression:

iex> x = 1
1
iex> 1 = x
1

1 = x is an brow-raiser for newbies but I think they must get some idea that it’s a special case to put a variable on the right hand side or something? I’m only guessing, but I find that showing them this last example really tends to drive it home that = really indeed not an assignment operator:

iex> 1 = 1
1

I always explain it as assignment being a side effect of matching. I know that’s sorta overloading a term, but it seems to help in the beginning, lol.

But there is no such thing as “binding assignment operator” in Elixir. There is only pattern matching (with potential rebinding). So I do not really get how these operators would differ.

Pattern-matching IS binding assignments, there’s no difference. An example:

{:ok, something} = MyFunc.call(params)

response = MyFunc.call(params) # Returns same, now `response` is bound as {:ok, something}

If you are a “language promoter” with the goal of teaching Elixir, you should probably spend some more time writing it, so you’re comfortable with how the language works.