Steven> Mutable versus immutable is irrelevant. The complexity of the Steven> object is irrelevant. The phase of the moon is irrelevant. The Steven> *only* relevant factor is the programmer's intention:
Which for a new user not familiar with the differing concepts of "is" and "==" can lead to mistakes. Steven> If you find it difficult to think of a reason for testing for Steven> identity, you're right, there aren't many. Since it's rare to Steven> care about identity, it should be rare to use "is". But in the Steven> few times you do care about identity, the correct solution is to Steven> use "is" no matter what sort of object it happens to be. It Steven> really is that simple. Right. Again though, when newcomers conflate the concepts they can deceive themselves into thinking "is" is just a faster "==". Skip -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list