[Python-Dev] type categories

[Oren Tirosh]

On Thu, Aug 15, 2002 at 09:55:04AM -0400, Kevin Jacobs wrote:
> [I'm just jumping into this thread -- please forgive me if my reply does not
> make sense in the context of the past discussions on this thread -- I've
> only had time to read part of the archive.]
> 
> On Thu, 15 Aug 2002, Oren Tirosh wrote:
> > In C a pointer and a value are both "objects".  But Python references are 
> > not objects.
> 
> References are so transparent that you can treat them as 'instance
> aliases'.
> 
> > In a language where almost everything is an object they are a 
> > conspicous exception.
> 
> What semantics do you propose for "reference objects"?

No no no! I am not proposing anything like that.

What I'm saying is that interfaces/categories/whateveryouwannacallit are
more about references to objects than about the objects themselves and 
pointed out that references are not even Python objects.

Two references to the same object may have very different expectations about 
what they are pointing to. I went a step further and decided to completely 
decouple it from the object: All the intelligence is in the category that 
makes observations about the object's form without requiring any change to 
the objects or types.

	Oren