list operation '+= ' or assignment problem

[Aahz Maruch]

In article <xX_46.2919$AH6.516601 at newsc.telia.net>,
Fredrik Lundh <fredrik at effbot.org> wrote:
>Joe Smith wrote:
>>
>> I guess that list assignment is an assignment of the reference
>> to the object and it does not copy the object.  Where as a
>> string object gets copied.
>
>Alex: No.
>Erno: No.
>Greg: Yes, in a way.
>Steve: Yes.
>Tim: No.
>
>time for a poll? ;-)

No, but I'll explain why some people are saying "yes":

foo = "abc"
bar = foo
bar += "d"

bar now contains a reference to "abcd", which is a copy of the original
string "abc" plus the additional letter "d".  Joe's usage of "copy" is
misleading and somewhat incorrect in a Python context, but it's not
completely out of the blue, either.
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