On Fri, Jul 21, 2017 at 10:19 AM, Brett Cannon <brett@python.org> wrote:
On Fri, 21 Jul 2017 at 10:08 Jason H <jhihn@gmx.com> wrote:
I experimented with Python in college and I've been for close to 20 years now. (Coming and going as needed) I love the language. But there is one annoyance that I continually run into.
There are basically two assignment operators, based on context, = and : a = 1 { a: 1 }
The `=` isn't an assignment operator, it's a *binding*. The name 'a' gets bound to the integer object "1" in your example. Don't confuse this with a language like C where it really is an assignment. If I later write: a = 2 I haven't changed the "cell" that contains the integer object, I've rebound the NAME `a` to a different object. But you've left out quite a few binding operations. I might forget some, but here are several: import a # bind the name `a` to a module object with open(fname) as a: pass # bind the name `a` to a file handle for a in [1]: pass # bind the name `a` to each of the objects in an iterable # ... In this case, the net result is identical to `a=1` def a(): pass # bind the name `a` to a function object defined in the body class a: pass # bind the name `a` to a class object defined in the body With a bit of circuitous code, you *can* use a dictionary to bind a variable too: >>> globals().update({'a':1}) >>> a 1 -- Keeping medicines from the bloodstreams of the sick; food from the bellies of the hungry; books from the hands of the uneducated; technology from the underdeveloped; and putting advocates of freedom in prisons. Intellectual property is to the 21st century what the slave trade was to the 16th.