[docs] [issue19737] Documentation of globals() and locals() should be improved

[Terry J. Reedy]

Terry J. Reedy added the comment:

In my opinion, vague ideas like this one should go to python-ideas first.

I agree with David that globals() and locals() are separate issues. Since there have been and perhaps still are locals() doc issues, I will take this one to be about 'globals()'.

A 'symbol table' is a mapping between 'symbols' and 'values'. I presume such were originally implemented as a concrete list of pairs, but the term is now is an abstraction. In the Python context, I think 'namespace' would be a better word, but I would not make the change without getting other opinions, such as on python-ideas. 

The [...] that you omitted says "This is always the dictionary of the current module (...)." I cannot interpret 'is' to mean a copy. So I think "[concrete] dictionary represents [abstract] symbol table [namespace]" is fine.

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nosy: +terry.reedy
versions: +Python 2.7, Python 3.3, Python 3.4

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<http://bugs.python.org/issue19737>
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