Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.pyt...@pearwood.info> writes: > On Thu, 23 Aug 2012 14:22:08 -0500, Evan Driscoll wrote: > > > In [the hypothetical language] Python--, any time you use a name, > > you have to prefix it with the word 'variable': > > variable x = 4 > > print(variable x) > > > > Does Python-- have variables? > > Of course, because that's what Python-- calls them. Whether Python-- > is *justified* in calling them variables is a more interesting > question.
How many legs does a horse have, if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling the tail a leg doesn't make it so. Similarly, I don't care that Python-- uses the term “variable”, it only has variables if it has things which meet a sensible definition of “variable”. So no, “because that's what Python-- calls them” is not sufficient. > I think it is, in the sense that name bindings are a kind of variable, > and fixed memory locations are a different kind of variable. But I > also think that it isn't, for exactly the reasons why I prefer to > describe Python (without the minuses) as having name bindings rather > than variables "in the C or Pascal sense". To emphasise what may not be apparent to some newcomers, Steven and I are virtually in exact agreement here. We talk more about where we differ because that's what interests us :-) -- \ “In the long run, the utility of all non-Free software | `\ approaches zero. All non-Free software is a dead end.” —Mark | _o__) Pilgrim, 2006 | Ben Finney -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
