[Tutor] pointer puzzlement

[Dave Angel]

On 05/08/2015 02:10 PM, Jim Mooney Py3.4.3winXP wrote:
> On 7 May 2015 at 18:42, Dave Angel <davea at davea.name> wrote:
>
>> Python doesn't have pointers
>
>
> So what is the difference between a python name and a pointer? I'm a bit
> fuzzy on that.

What's the difference between a painting of Obama and a living state 
Senator from New York?

Pointers are not part of Python.  Python is a language specification. 
Some implementations may use pointers to implement the binding, but 
that's irrelevant unless you're doing something like linking C code to 
such an implementation.  Some implementations may run on Motorola 
processors, but that's not part of the language either.  Other 
implementation do not use pointers for the binding.

A name can be reached from a namespace, and it in turn is bound to an 
object.  That binding is a one-way connection that lets the interpreter 
find the object, given the namespace and the name.



-- 
DaveA