On Mon, 2006-10-02 at 16:04 -0700, kirby urner wrote: > > Anyway, I would advocate the "as opposed to" be integrated into such a > > presentation. > > > > Art > > > Actually *duplicating* a piece of memory (wasteful?), to make the same > contents reside elsewhere (why?), with its own handles, is considered > a semi-esoteric move in Python, not something you'd necessarily need > right out of the box.
In my mind, it is not a matter of needing copy right out of the box. And that is the argument I keep running into when making this general case - that teaching "copy" - in any form - early overemphasizes something that is "semi-esoteric". And I understand that point. Except that mutable/non-mutable is cognitively more than semi-esoteric for the uninitiated. While there certainly is nothing in the least esoteric about the list data-type or the assignment operator. The argument I keep making and for which I cannot seem to find any takers, is that essential to explaining/understanding assignment of a list to a name, is understanding in the negative - i.e., what it is not. We are still just teaching basic assignment with regard to a list, and I maintain that doing so effectively should in part be done in the negative. What it is not silhouetting better what it is. Art _______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list [email protected] http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
