What other languages use the same data model as Python?

[Gregory Ewing]

> On Thu, 05 May 2011 07:43:59 +1000, Ben Finney wrote:
> 
>>‘x’ is a name. Names are bound to values. Talk of “variable” only
>>confuses the issue because of the baggage carried with that term.

But to use 'name' as a complete replacement for 'variable',
you have to stretch it to include things like a[i], b.c,
e.f(x).g[i:j].k, etc. which goes rather a long way beyond
the everyday meaning of the word.

In Python I use 'variable' to mean more or less 'something
that can be assigned to', which accords with the way it's
used in relation to many other languages, and doesn't
suggest any restriction to things named by a single
identifier.

>>But the data model of Python doesn't fit well with the ideas that the
>>term “variable” connotes for most programmers:

Seems to me that anyone taking that connotation from it
has not yet been sufficiently educated about the Python
data model itself. Part of explaining that data model
consists of instilling the very idea that the things in
Python that are analogous to variables in other languages
only refer to data rather than containing the actual data.

>>Saying “variable” and “has the value”

But I don't say "has a value", I say "refers to".

-- 
Greg