Ben Finney wrote:
Larry Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
The term "pointer" carries much extra baggage for a programmer
thinking of C (as the original poster is)...
Thanks everyone! Just a quick correction - "as the original poster is"
is a bit of a jump that does not reflect my original question. I DO
understand how C and other programming languages handle variables
internally (the bits of actual memory reserved, etc. etc.) and that's
why I asked the question in the first place.
If Python doesn't do it like C and the others then what mechanism does
it use - it's the sort of issue that helps me understand how the
language is interacting with the underlying operating system/hardware.
By way of background, in my ancient working days I looked after
mainframe systems written in COBOL and Natural (and some assembler which
I never had to support personally but my staff did). I found that most
programmers write bad code because they don't understand what the
machine is doing with their code. Probably doesn't matter any more but
old habits die hard! ;-)
Regards,
Peter
--
Peter Anderson
There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to
conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the
introduction of a new order of things -- Niccolo Machiavelli, The
Prince, ch. 6
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