Michael Welle <mwe012...@gmx.net> writes: > so 'the function has changed' really means 'the reference has > changed'? Strange.
Humans think in strage ways :-) Really, though, it shouldn't be too surprising. The *perception* is that the reference (a name, or an index in a sequence, or whatever) remains unchanged; at least, you still address the reference exactly the same way. ‘foo’ in the code remains ‘foo’. But what you get from that reference is different. So, because what I get when I refer to ‘foo’ is different after some operation than what it was prior to that operation, it is natural to speak loosely about “this operation has changed foo”. > If you hear 'function foo', do you think of the reference 'foo' or do > you think of the referenced thing, the function object? It might be > context dependent, but usually I think about the latter. It is normal for us to think of them as one, because in Python the *only* way to get an object is through some specific reference. Our natural language doesn't easily handle the separable but linked concepts. > But it might just be a language problem. Which is another way of saying thta it's a human thinking problem. Try not to have overly strict expectations of how people think about it, while also striving to express ourselves precisely. -- \ “Dvorak users of the world flgkd!” —Kirsten Chevalier, | `\ rec.humor.oracle.d | _o__) | Ben Finney _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
