On 2006-07-27, Dennis Lee Bieber <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 27 Jul 2006 14:11:35 GMT, Antoon Pardon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > declaimed the following in comp.lang.python: > >> In a language like C the name doesn't hold anything either. >> The name is just a way for refering to a memory space which >> will hold something. >> > Except for one difference... In C (and most other languages) that > memory space is FIXED -- name "X" ALWAYS refers to memory space "Y". > Even in the case of a C pointer -- "P" always refers to one memory space > "p" wherein the contents of that memory space is a user-accessible > reference to some other memory space; to actually get to the object one > must dereference "P" using "*P" or "P->" type notation > > In Python, even the location of the "name" may vary -- if you "del > name" then do some operations and rebind "name", the new "name" itself > could be somewhere else in memory.
You are right. That is a difference between Python and C. But How important is that difference? Should I design a C-like language with the parror virtual machine in mind as target architecture: http://www.parrotcode.org/ Would that difference be important enough to no longer talk about variables? IMO we also talk about Lisp- and Smalltalk variables and AFAIK these behave more like Python than C. If "variables" is used in such languages, why should the term not be appropiate for Python. -- Antoon Pardon -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
