how much does Python model my Compsci course?

[Grant Edwards]

In article <Pine.GSO.4.21.0105311240090.10131-100000 at y.glue.umd.edu>, Roy Katz wrote:

>I'm wondering what amount of this material is applicable to Python

Probably most of it.

>(backgrounder: I've been using Python since the end of '96 in 10th
>grade).  Have any of you heard of a 'dope vector'?

Not that I can remember, but it's been 15 years since I took
the course that probably would have covered that material.

>What is Python's internal equivalent? How about a 'central
>environment table' (as opposed to 'activation records')?  

I don't know what a "central environment table" is either.

>Last year I asked here wether Python uses pass-by-reference;
>Then I learned that there are four or five major types of param
>passing (the others being pass-by-{name,result,value,value-result}).  
>But Python looks as if it has invented a new form to (perhaps a
>variation on pass-by-ref) param passing, based on whether or
>not the object passed in is mutable (from what I
>understand...?)

Python uses pass by value.

However, all values are references.

When you do:

  foo(x)
  
What is passed to foo is the value of x.
The value of x is a reference to an object.

>Which leads me to wonder if what I'm being taught in class is dated. 

A little of it might be, but it's still good to know.  Those
who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

>Dear G-d, we were using Pascal syntax for learning arrays,
>functions and param passing (nevermind that our projects were
>in perl and java).

I don't think there's anything terribly "wrong" with Pascal
syntax.

>I can't /read/ Pascal anymore. It's too much to type. It's like
>this post; so much of the program is keywords that finding the
>programmer's intention is like finding a needle in a hay silo.
>But enough about Pascal.  I suspect that Python has left these
>concepts (dope vector, pass-by-*) in the dust, and just went
>its own path.

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  As a FAD follower,
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