Why is an assignment to a base class valid, but an assignment to a derived class a compilation error?

Question

This was an interview question. Consider the following:

struct A {}; 
struct B : A {}; 
A a; 
B b; 
a = b;
b = a; 

Why does b = a;

Answer 1

Because every B is an A, but not every A is a B.

Edited following comments to make things a bit clearer (I modified your example):

struct A {int someInt;}; 
struct B : A {int anotherInt}; 
A a; 
B b; 

/* Compiler thinks: B inherits from A, so I'm going to create
   a new A from b, stripping B-specific fields. Then, I assign it to a.
   Let's do this!
 */
a = b;

/* Compiler thinks: I'm missing some information here! If I create a new B
   from a, what do I put in b.anotherInt?
   Let's not do this!
 */
b = a;

In your example, there's no attributes someInt nor anotherInt, so it could work. But the compiler will not allow it anyway.