Variables vs. names
Dennis Lee Bieber
wlfraed at ix.netcom.com
Mon Oct 7 02:25:34 EDT 2002
Martin v. Löwis fed this fish to the penguins on Sunday 06 October 2002
10:44 pm:
> aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) writes:
>
>> Python names don't have values. Names are always references to
>> objects. I don't know Java well enough to have any clue how it
>> handles references, but I know Java doesn't have pointers.
>
<snip>
> I believe newcomers to Java have the same problem that they have in
> Python: "If parameters are passed by reference, how come I cannot
> modify a variable in the caller?" is a question that I've heard both
> for Java and for Python.
>
Sounds like we need to drop the use of "reference"...
If explained as:
Python names have associations to values. Passing parameters creates
duplicates of the association using the dummy argument names.
Assignment to a name changes the association of that name to the new
value; it does not change any other associations to the value.
the confusion should be reduced.
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