[Tutor] Variable reference

[Danny Yoo]

>> It's a work-around for the fact that
>> Python doesn't have dedicated syntax to say "operate on the reference
>> foo" rather than the value of foo.
>
> I think Danny's point was that you should not micromanage name bindings at
> all. Then Alan added that del is useful for dicts etc. on which I replied
> that a method would be sufficient for that.

Yes.  Apologies for not being clear.

I was thinking of the two recent uses of 'del' showing up on the
mailing list in the past week or so.  Both of the uses, from different
authors, were trying to manually manage name bindings.  It made the
code harder to understand. In both cases, both uses of 'del' were
ineffective.

When I'm reading code, I want to know statically what my variables
are.  By statically, I mean that I should be able to tell, just be
reading the code, what the code means, without running it.  "What
variables are accessible?" is one of the most basic questions I ask
myself when I'm reading code.

But if we use 'del' on name bindings, that makes the set of accessible
variables a dynamic property that, in the most general case, requires
us to run the code to figure it out.

When I'm trading a static property for a dynamic property, I want to
get a useful amount of power for that tradeoff, because it's costly.
In my opinion, 'del' on a name binding is just not useful enough to be
worth that conceptual cost.  'del' to remove attributes or dictionary
key/value pairs is a different matter.  I want to constrain my
objections to 'del' specifically to its use on name bindings.

That all being said: wow.  I'm getting a heck of a lot more
curmudgeon-y these days.  :P