Steven D'Aprano wrote: > On Thu, 05 Jan 2006 05:21:24 +0000, Bryan Olson wrote: > > >>Steven D'Aprano wrote: >> >>>Mike Meyer wrote: >> >>[...] >> >>>>Correct. What's stored in a list is a reference. >>> >>>Nonsense. What is stored in the list is an object. >> >>According to the Python Language Reference: >> >> Some objects contain references to other objects; these are >> called containers. Examples of containers are tuples, lists >> and dictionaries. >> [http://docs.python.org/ref/objects.html] > > > Is it so hard to understand that the word "reference" has a general, > imprecise meaning in common English (which is clearly how the quote > above is using the word) while still having in the context of assignment > and argument passing a more precise meaning which is dangerously > misleading?
What's pretty easy to understand at this point, is that Mike was right and you were wrong. "Reference" has a precise meaning here, it's what the Python language uses, and contrary to your reporting, it's what the rest of the discipline uses. > Words are important -- not only for what they mean, but for what the > connotations they carry. For people who come to Python from C-like > languages, the word "reference" means something that is just not true in > the context of Python's behaviour. Wrong. C does not have references, and the Python use is consistent with the rest of computer science. You seem to have read in things that it does not mean. Fix *your* thinking. That's why people come to Python with a > frame that tells that what call by reference implies ("I can do this...") > and then they discover that they often *can't* do that. I'm sorry if you got confused, but please don't project it on the rest of the discipline. C does not have even references. [...] > Thinking about Python's behaviour ("it always passes references to > objects") Just fix your thinking and don't attribute these problems to others. [...] > If we were writing academic papers, we could define "call by reference" > and "objects contain references" any way we liked, That would be a terrible thing to do. Just learn to use the meaning accepted in the discipline, and used in the Python doc. -- --Bryan -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list