On Nov 19, 12:32 am, saccade <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I am not a programmer so I feel odd commenting about language design > decisions. When my Prof. introduced python the first question that > popped into mind was that since "x=9; y=9; print x is y and x == y" > prints "True" is there a way to change the value of 9? He said that > was silly but after class showed me that statements "True = []" work > but suggested it was harmless and not quite a bug. > > So if I am permitted to think of integers as immutable objects with > predefined labels (i.e. the integers used in the text of the program > code) that cannot de or re referenced then what a similar treatment of > characters will look like seams to be an arbitary (a design) decition. > > In this vein it seams reasonable to expect 'a'[0] and 'ba'[1] to refer > to the same object. If one follows the convention used with integers > (9 and 9 refer to the same object) then 'ab' and 'ab' would be the > same. An equally reasonable assumption would be that 'ab' and 'ab' are > two different sequences and so not equal (I do not see the problem > here).
The problem is with side-effets. With "pure" code, your reasoning would be sound; but given that side-effects may alter the execution path, [EMAIL PROTECTED] and [EMAIL PROTECTED] may _not_ refer to the same object. This observation, is, of course, highly superfluous. ;) Regards, Jordan -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
