On Nov 19, 12:28 pm, Joe Strout <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Nov 19, 2008, at 11:05 AM, Douglas Alan wrote: > > (2) It is also unarguably true that saying that Python or Java use > > "call-by-value", and saying nothing more is going to be profoundly > > confusing to anyone who is learning these languages. > > Perhaps (unless they've already learned this from one of the other > languages).
If they learn the bad definition first, we can't go back and change it. We can correct it for them for the future. Don't appeal to hot- shot authorities, like the ones that don't acknowledge that there were already people using terms they hijacked for their own cult following. > > Q. What type of calling semantics do Python and Java use? > > > A. Call-by-sharing. > > Fair enough, but if the questioner then says "WTF is call-by-sharing," > we should answer "call-by-sharing is the term we prefer for call-by- > value in the case where the value is an object reference (as is always > the case in Python)." But if someone says, 'What is call-by-reference?', do you answer, 'C-b- r is the term we prefer for call-by-value in the case where the value is a variable reference'? -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
