On Thu, 2007-10-04 at 11:11 +1300, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote: > In Python, all names _are_ variables. They are not "bound" to objects. The > value of os.path is a pointer.
No. "os.path" refers to the object that's known as the "path" attribute of the object known as "os". That object, in turn, is a module. > It's implemented as a pointer, While it is true that namespaces are implemented in CPython as collections of pointers to PyObject structures, that's an irrelevant implementation detail. I doubt that they are implemented as pointers in Jython, PyPy, or IronPython. > it has all the semantics of a pointer. No, it doesn't. A pointer means the physical address of a memory location, which implies that you can overwrite that memory location. Can you do that in Python? > Honestly, why do people react to the word "pointer" as though computers have > to wear underwear to conceal something shameful going on in their nether > regions? I won't speak for "people", but maybe it's because Python acts precisely as this underwear that does conceal the low-level regions of memory management and bit-twiddling that Python programmers like to avoid in favor of solving higher-level problems. If it helps you to think of Python names as "kind of like pointers," you're free to do so, but it's only a weak analogy that can lead beginners to drawing incorrect conclusions. -- Carsten Haese http://informixdb.sourceforge.net -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
