On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 6:06 PM, Dave Angel <da...@davea.name> wrote: > On 06/19/2013 03:14 AM, Chris Angelico wrote: >> >> On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 3:42 PM, Dave Angel <da...@davea.name> wrote: >>> >>> Names are *one of* the ways we specify which objects are to be used. (We >>> can >>> also specify objects via an container and a subscript or slice, or via an >>> attribute of another object. And probably another way or two.) >> >> >> But you always have to bootstrap it with either a name. > > > Whatever bootstrap really means in this context. But if you have myname[3] > + myname[5], the two objects being added are identified by a subscript > operation, not just a name. > >> Or a literal. > > > A literal is used to create an object, and acts like a temporary name for > that object, but once again the object being operated on isn't necessarily > that one. You can subscript and get attributes from a literal as well. > > >> So those are the only two ways to specify which objects are to be >> used. >> > > That would be a pretty weak language, and it wouldn't be python. > > > Now if you considered "." and "[" as operators, then I could understand your > point. But > http://docs.python.org/3/reference/lexical_analysis.html#operators > seems to say differently. > > Also see > http://docs.python.org/3/reference/expressions.html#primaries
They may not quite be "operators" per se, but the fact is that they're composites built of primitives. You can't reference an object without somewhere having either a name or a literal to start it off. Your example starts with the object identified by the name 'myname', and the objects referenced by the literals 3 and 5, and builds up from there. Rebinding 'myname' would change that expression, as would changing the meanings of 3 or 5, though I don't know of any way to do the latter :) ChrisA -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
